David Rankin begins this short book by claiming that not many patristic scholars have paid sufficient attention to the secular world out of which Christians emerged, and it is his aim to make good this apparent omission. After a brief introductory chapter in which the author pays particular attention to the importance of rhetoric in the second- and third-century Roman empire, four chapters follow each of which examines the Christian literature of a particular geographical location (Rome, Carthage, Antioch and Asia Minor, and Alexandria). Each chapter begins with a general overview of the political and social character of the geographic location, a brief introduction to the Christian writer to be discussed, and ends with a discussion of that author's engagement with his wider ‘secular’ setting, discussed from the perspective of a variety of subjects including philosophical and cultural profile, and relations with the Roman authorities and the Jews. The discussions are generally informative and a brief bibliography is attached to the end of each chapter. The book, I fear, promises possibly more than it delivers. Little of what Rankin says is very fresh and some of the discussions lack evidence of a real engagement with some of the wider issues. So, for instance, the importance of the Second Sophistic for the interpretation of the Christianity of the period, and this in spite of the considerable growth of literature on this subject in classical quarters and even some patrological ones (Allen Brent, for instance, on Ignatius), is never explicitly addressed; and on a related theme not enough is made of the extent to which Christians in this period sought to appropriate and trump the classical philosophical and literary tradition (Dawson's work of 1992 is mentioned but little more than that; and Droge's book of 1989 appears nowhere in the bibliography). Also some of the discussions are a little attenuated and do not betray much engagement with recent secondary discussion. This is particularly the case with Rankin's piecemeal engagements with the question of Jewish-Christian relations and questions relating more generally to the development of Christian identity in this period.