This useful volume offers twenty-eight papers on religion and power in late antiquity—well-trodden territory for scholars of the late ancient world. The editors of this collection, however, should be commended for assembling a set of essays that, together, encourage a reassessment of power and religion across a range of subfields in late ancient studies. Individually, the essays are well researched and represent significant contributions to late ancient social, political, cultural, and religious history.

The editors identify Foucaultian and recent postcolonial discourse analysis as the theoretical touchstones of the collection. While Foucault's work has figured productively in late ancient studies for the past four decades, postcolonial insights have invigorated late ancient studies more recently. We can see the influence of this trend in the collection's stress on locating “religion and power” in the context of various boundaries and borders. Two sections of essays explore religion along the western and eastern frontiers of the later Roman Empire; other sections consider literary frontiers between the classical and post-classical, Neoplatonic negotiations of boundaries between the profane and sacred, and the limits of ecclesiastical and secular power. These essays were originally presented at the biennial Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity Conference, though all have clearly been expanded and revised. The essays are grouped thematically into eight sections. This method makes the collection especially useful; a collection of essays on a topic as broad as “religion and power” could easily make for a disconnected read. The thematic format asks the reader to consider resonances and dissonances among the essays on a given theme. Each group of essays, in effect, offers an entry point into various current topics in late ancient studies. Indeed, one could envision assigning a section of essays (that on “Constantine and the Power of the Cross,” for instance) as an effective reading assignment in a graduate seminar.