This book is welcome both for the information it provides and for what it indicates about the state of research into early modern German history more generally. A generation ago, one would not have expected a series on European History in Perspective to include the topic Early Modern Catholic Germany, despite its manifest significance not only for the early modern era but for the confessional struggles of the nineteenth century. While not neglecting doctrinal questions, this book ably focuses primarily on institutional and devotional issues to give a well-rounded view of what early modern German Catholicism was like for its practitioners. It also avoids the traditional emphasis on the Austro-Bavarian perspective, drawing on many examples from the Rhineland and Westphalia, among other regions. Forster is an ideal choice to address this complicated issue, as his previous books have explored both the institutional framework of German Catholicism at the level of the Empire and the ground-level impact of those institutions in local context. The book synthesizes Forster's own research and recent scholarship on both sides of the Atlantic.

The book presents the development of Catholic identity and institutions in six chronological segments, each of which has a dominant theme. The first chapter presents Catholic institutions and life as they confronted the Protestant Reformation, roughly from 1500 to 1570. It begins by discussing the institutions of the universal church as a way of investigating why Catholicism receded so quickly in the face of the Protestant challenge and what grounds remained for renewal. The second chapter is called “The Counter-Reformation Episode.” It presents Catholic reformation both as a recommitment to traditional practices and as an effort to turn the tide against Protestant gains, from roughly 1570 to 1630. It charts the increasing confidence of Catholic leaders that they might be able to reconvert some of the souls lost during the first phase of the Reformation. The third chapter is called “The Thirty Years' War,” though the bulk of the chapter treats the period after the promulgation of the Edict of Restitution, the high point of the Counter-Reformation episode, rather than at the outbreak of the conflict. As such, the Thirty Years' War marks a turning away from the effort to convert Protestants back into the Catholic fold and toward greater attention to redefining practical piety for current believers. The next two chapters, “The German Church after 1650” and “Baroque Catholicism” loosen the lockstep chronological focus to emphasize different thematic elements. “The German Church” focuses on what happened to the Reichskirche, the territorial churches of the main Catholic states, and the regular and secular clergy in the century after the Thirty Years' War. “Baroque Catholicism” focuses on how those institutions affected the beliefs and practices of the majority of the Catholic population. The final chapter shows how Enlightenment rationalism chipped away at the institutions and practices of Baroque Catholicism. These changes were not imposed from the outside, but were part of a reaction within Catholicism itself.

Although the chapters on Baroque Catholicism are the pivot around which Forster builds his argument, and the distinctiveness of Baroque Catholicism features prominently in both the introduction and conclusion, all sections of the book make significant contributions to our understanding of the distinctiveness of German Catholicism. Forster suggests that religious practice oscillated between reformist, private, and disciplined tendencies and populist, communal, and dramatic impulses in broad century-long arcs. This well-crafted study should prompt closer study of the forces driving both social-disciplining and populist exuberance within religious traditions.