This stout volume certainly does something to maintain the presence of its illustrious subject in the modern academic catalogues. Söderblom, the prophetic guiding spirit of early twentieth-century ecumenism and the guiding spirit behind the 1925 Stockholm conference, was deeply admired in Britain and the United States. At least one official photograph of Bishop Bell of Chichester places him purposefully beside a portrait of his Swedish hero. If this long shadow has since receded, it reflects a good deal upon a decline in our interest in themes which once excited both the idealist and the scholar. It is surely time that we retrieved them. Dietz Lange, a German scholar, here edits a great variety of materials with authority. This is a valuable compendium, designed to reveal the richness of Söderblom's fascinations and the diversity of his friends and allies. It is, as its title pronounces, an international collection for which the committed reader will need English and German. The admirable introduction is in English; the Swedish letters are duly presented in the original and translated into English. Lange finds his Söderblom at large in three guises: the pastor, the professor and the archbishop. In all respects, an editor has his work cut out for him: Söderblom, Lange remarks patiently, was ‘a tireless letter writer’, who would busily dictate letters even as he walked along the street (p. 9). The shelves of Uppsala University Library now stagger under the weight of no less than 38,000 letters, diaries and notes. And yet what accumulates here is not merely official and dry, but lively and rich. For Söderblom enjoyed people and he inhabited many distinct dimensions with apparent ease. Church historians might note his conviction – in contradiction to Harnack – that the history of religion belonged not solely in the history department, but in the theological faculty. The great bulk of this collection lies, very naturally and properly, with Söderblom's years as archbishop of Uppsala. Although his appointment came as a shock to the politicos of his Church, it was a public role for which he was brilliantly qualified. A convinced internationalist, his public work now coincided with the outbreak of the First World War and, subsequently, a new, bustling age of conferences and movements. It was in this landscape that those from the English-speaking world encountered him. In this collection, it is no surprise to find him in eager dialogue with the assorted giants of German Protestantism: Otto Dibelius, Adolf von Harnack, Rudolf Otto and Frierich Heiler (quite a collection in itself). But here, too, are the Scandinavians, Gustaf Aulén, Eivind Berggrav and Birger Forell, the American Henry Atkinson, the Scot David Cairns and Archbishop Davidson. Altogether, this is a valuable volume which deserves the international readership for which it is so clearly designed. Both the tenacious editor and his committed publishers have every right to our gratitude.