Robert E.Alvis and Piotr Wilczek concur that despite the growing number of English-language works on Polish history, the history of Christianity in Poland remains sparsely covered in English. This claim requires some nuancing. Since the turn of the millennium academic presses have published monographs on various aspects of Polish or Polish-Lithuanian ecclesiastical history by, inter alios, Brian Porter-Szűcs, Neal Pease, Barbara Skinner, Piotr Stolarski, Serhii Plokhy, Magda Teter, David Frick and Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski, as well as translations of Jerzy Kłoczowski's A history of Polish Christianity (Cambridge 2000) and Wojciech Kriegseisen's comparative opus on early modern confessions and the state. Numerous articles on Poland and Lithuania have also appeared in thecolumns of this and other Anglophone journals. The problem rather lies in the reluctance of some authors of general histories to trouble themselves with understanding developments in Poland and Lithuania – despite their evident importance to the history of Christianity, long before John Paul ii appeared on the balcony of St Peter's in 1978. In this regard, while Diarmaid MacCulloch acquitted himself admirably in both Reformation (London 2003) and Christianity (London 2009), glancing through the indexes of Euan Cameron's The European Reformation (2nd edn, Oxford 2012) and Carlos Eire's Reformation (New Haven 2016) will bring disappointment. Both Alvis and Wilczek address gaps in the field; whether they will influence future textbooks and syntheses remains to be seen.

The striking cover of Alvis's volume blends Poland's White Eagle with a haunting icon of Mary that has become the most recognisable symbol of Polish Catholicism. But the most important keyword in the title is ‘tradition’. This is a history that reflects the importance attached to an accumulated tradition connecting the past, present and future of Catholic Poland. It was articulated most powerfully by Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński (primate between 1948 and 1981), whose words frame the book. The author's challenge is to convey the inner strength and cohesion imparted to Polish Catholicism by this widely shared conviction, while maintaining the critical distance needed to explain the dissonance, diversity and disrepute which have also been experienced – for over a millennium – by Polish Catholics. Continuity is given its due, while doing justice to profound changes to both Poland and Catholicism. So Alvis contrasts the accommodating attitude of nineteenth-century hierarchs to the partitioning empires with their twentieth-century successors’ much firmer stance towards the Communist regime. Alvis succeeds in being fair-minded to both Catholics and non-Catholics. He deals at some length with manifestations of Judeophobic and anti-semitic prejudice and violence, while also highlighting centuries of largely peaceful co-existence, as well as the risks taken by some Polish Catholics to save some Polish Jews from extermination by the Nazi German occupiers. By the same token, however, he is far from neutral as regards contemporary ‘progressive’ and ‘conservative’ Polish Catholics – between whom John Paul ii is cast as a centrist.

This is a well-crafted book. Each of the ten chapters begins with a vignette of a key event, from the baptism of Duke Mieszko i in 966 to the tragic plane crash at Smolensk in 2010. Most chapters contain sections that respectively examine political contexts, ecclesiastical institutions and the ‘lived experience of Polish Catholics’. However, this structure gives way to a chronological treatment for the event-packed age of ‘reform, romance and revolution’ between 1764 and 1848. Alvis has read and mastered a very extensive secondary literature and many printed primary and press sources. He also draws conclusions from the legacy of sacral art and buildings. The author's learning is lightly worn, and the style is invitingly clear. This book can be recommended confidently to scholars, students and the wider public.

In recent decades the history of Protestantism in Poland and Poland-Lithuania has fared rather less well among scholars – Poles included – than the history of Catholicism. This makes Polonia reformata especially timely. The reader should not, however, expect either a major synthesis or a monograph. Wilczek's book contains ten thematically connected studies, three of which have not been published previously. The author first attempts to situate his own contribution amidst metanarratives of the ‘heart’ or periphery of Europe – with reference to Wyszyński, John Paul ii and the belated triumph of the Counter-Reformation. Next come remarks on the reception of John Calvin in Poland, before we are treated to four essays on aspects of Socinianism. The first covers historiography. The second gives a very useful outline of the main theological concepts among Polish anti-Trinitarians, notably their Christology, but also noting a moderation of their initially radical ‘social Gospel’. Third is a topographical look at the Socinian intellectual powerhouse of Raków (‘in the middle of nowhere’), and the fourth examines the Racovian catechism. A challenge is then thrown down to simplistic views of ‘Polish tolerance’ via an analysis of polemics between Jesuits and radical reformers. The Polish Brethren, argues Wilczek, debated quite freely, but then excluded those who voiced unwelcome views. They claimed the privileges of noblemen, but did not fulfil noblemen's duties (such as military service). Finally, a section on poets first offers an illuminating study of Jan Kochanowski's Christianity (with significant silences: it was not anti-orthodox, but pre-Tridentine). This is followed by an examination of the ‘biblical poet’ Erazm Otwinowski, and then by a nuanced approach, via six poets, to the problem of conversion between denominations – in various directions. This slim and regrettably expensive volume whets the appetite for a more comprehensive treatment of Reformed Polish Christianity, which has been much more than a mere ‘episode’ in Polish history. We hope that the author's current service as Poland's ambassador to the United States does not unduly delay this.