This collection is a Festschrift in honour of David Little. It has its origins in a symposium held at Harvard Divinity School in 2009, when Little retired from his position as Professor of Religion, Ethnicity and International Conflict. He is currently a fellow at the Berkley Centre for Religion, Peace and International Affairs. As these affiliations suggest, David Little's work spans ethics, the history of religion, human rights and conflict prevention, and all these themes are reflected in this volume of 17 essays, to which Little himself has added a postscript commenting on those contributions. The work is divided into two parts, the first focusing on ‘normative prospects’ concerning human rights and religious ethics, the second on ‘functional prospects’ concerning religion, public policy and conflict. What they all share is a deep admiration for the work of Little, and they offer a close engagement with aspects of that work – and its implications.

This does present some difficulties. Readers who are unfamiliar with Little's extensive and unusually varied body of writing may find it difficult to engage with some of the chapters, which seem to assume a relatively high degree of knowledge of that writing. Equally, while many of the contributions tease out or interrogate issues arising from his work, their more general relevance for the underlying questions which that work seeks to address is not necessarily immediately apparent to the non-specialist. To that extent, this can appear a rather inward-looking collection of writings, and quite daunting to engage with. This is unfortunate, since many of the chapters offer challenging and profound reflection on those broader issues. Thus Witte, while reflecting on Little's role as ‘A modern Calvinist architect of human rights’ (Chapter 1), offers a powerful statement of why religion and human rights need each other; Sachedina, considering Islam and human rights as a conversation between the religious and the secular (Chapter 4) forcefully notes that ‘religion cannot and will not confirm itself to a private domain where it will ultimately loose its influence in nurturing the human conscience’ (p 92). This finds reflection later in the collection in the discussion of public reason in Chapter 16 (‘Religion and politics: seeking a reconciliation’, by Sherman and Gergen) and, in particular, in Chapter 17 (‘The core of public reason’), where Rice persuasively argues that public reason must itself be reflective of basic entitlements grounded in necessary moral truths (p 327). Sachedina's arguments also provide an important backcloth to the argument of Hibbard (Chapter 15) that leaders in many countries fail to understand that conservative theological positions do not necessarily support politically conservative, or authoritarian, positions.

Other interesting pairings include chapters on exploring the interface between religion, ethics and war: Hehir (Chapter 9) argues that ‘it is possible to recast Just War legitimation for (limited) war at the interstate level into an argument for morally justifiable humanitarian intervention’ (p 183); while Simion (Chapter 10) points out that the Orthodox Church developed a very different approach to the use of force, accepting but not necessarily endorsing its use and resisting the adoption of a just war theory (p 204). The implications of this approach for humanitarian intervention are not, unfortunately, explored.

Another set of chapters looks at peacebuilding – a reflection of Little's time as Senior Scholar at the United States Institute of Peace. Hayward (Chapter 11) explores his contribution to the establishment and operation of the Institute's Religion and Peacebuilding programme. This is followed by two chapters which highlight the ambivalent role that religion can play in that regard. Petersen (Chapter 12) recalling that Little had pointed out that it ought not to be assumed ‘that religion always brokers peace’ (p 222), ‘multi-tracks’ diplomacy, so that engagement with religious communities can parallel and complement ‘official diplomacy’, in an effort to ensure cohesion between the formal diplomatic engagement and the direction of travel within the communities being addressed. As he puts it ‘What makes the work of religious actors so powerful is that they can address the deepest needs of a shared public narrative or worldview and offer the possibility or the re-storying of a person or people's experience’ (p 232). If so, this certainly justifies his view that ‘Religious beliefs and practices must be seen as tools in the toolbox toward good diplomacy’ (p 223) – and powerful ones at that’. Appleby (Chapter 13) takes this a step further and, adding further content, supports the argument that ‘the autonomy of religious bodies from the state, within a robust enforcement of religious freedom’ is ‘the key variable in advancing both democratization and human rights’ (p 242) and thus a ‘critical component of religious peacebuilding’.

There is much else besides. But enough has been said to show that this is not only a collection which engages scholastically and practically with the hugely significant contributions to learning and thinking which David Little has made over the years. It also has much to say to policy-makers today on how religion engages with public policy and how that might best be achieved. It is a collection well worth getting to grips with.