In 1969 Michael Bourdeaux and John Lawrence founded the Centre for the Study of Religion and Communism, later renamed Keston College – a news service and a think tank devoted to the dissemination of information about religious believers and persecution in the Soviet territories. With the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 and the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, Keston's mission was abruptly curtailed, the organisation continuing as an educational charity supporting research into religion under Communist regimes. In those twenty years of active service, Keston became a dynamic player not only in the politics of belief in the Soviet Union but in Cold War diplomacy itself. Religion was, as many have argued, the Achilles heel of a regime that was as determined to remould consciousness as the means of production. The Keston archive, now housed at Baylor University in Texas, and showcased in this fine volume, tells the story of resistance to these tenacious and relentlessly cruel efforts. Samizdat manuscripts, photographs and images of state propaganda are among the sources reproduced in Voices of the voiceless, each accompanied by a short, explanatory essay. Much of Keston's work centred on publicising failures of process and justice surrounding the trials of dissident Christians, who faced imprisonment or detention in psychiatric facilities for acts of evangelism or the refusal to renounce their faith. Some of the most striking material here relates to the trials of young, often female, dissidents, whose public testimonies became a matter of embarrassment to the Soviet state and quietly probed its ideological monopoly. The material in this volume is rich and varied but a common theme is the potency of lived religion, and the importance of networks and unofficial channels of communication in sustaining it. As one essay remarks, there is little romantic about these materials, which exuded ‘strength’ and ‘desperation’ in equal measure, but together they create a formidable impression of the capacity of conscience to withstand persecution. For those who consider history above all a question of narrative, reportage, telling stories, this is history at its finest.