Naomi J. Miller and Naomi Yavneh have published an engaging book that addresses the topics of sibling relations, gender dynamics, and family bonds in the early modern world. The book is a collection of thoughtful and thought-provoking essays in which authors from an array of disciplines, including language, literature, musicology, history, and women's studies, examine different texts. Some sources feature family dynamics at their core, while in others these relationships are more obscurely rendered, so the reader benefits from learning how a diversity of texts can be read to better understand intimate family relationships. The authors demonstrate that sibling relations are as intense and varied as the better-researched bonds between parents and children. They argue that by studying siblings, scholars can come to better understand family dynamics and gender relations in the early modern era. Naomi Miller writes in her piece on The Tempest, “What I find most interesting about the array of actual and potential sibling relations … is not so much the mere fact of their existence as their capacity to serve as portals into constructions of domination and desire, longing and loss, across a range of social and familial relations” (161).

The editors assert that siblings and their interactions are not the subject of many twentieth- and twenty-first-century studies of the early modern era but that siblings are significant actors in source materials such as letters, memoirs, and plays. In Miller and Yavneh's collection, siblings are shown supporting and loving one another in some instances and embroiled in conflicts in others. The diverse experiences grow from family choices, based upon gender and birth order, that shape decisions made about inheritance, marriage, dowry, and education.

The book approaches sibling relationships from many perspectives, and Miller and Yavneh organize it topically, with the first section titled “Divine Devotion.” Religion is a critical topic in family history, in part because in some regions, namely, Italian cities, elite families cloistered a large portion of their daughters in an effort to concentrate dowry resources on one or two others. Convents typically did not permit more than two siblings to enter an establishment, fearing power blocks within the convent; however, family dynasties did develop inside some cloisters. It was common for siblings to remain close after some entered religious life, and one essay illustrates a case in which brothers helped a sister in a convent to assert her sanctity, while another article examines the struggles waged in Protestant cities by reformed families to remove their daughters and sisters from their Catholic convents. While many families also guided younger sons into the church, the authors included in this book do not examine male religious life.

Tension and competition between siblings is the topic of the book's second section, “Ties That Bind,” which examines political and economic ramifications of public and private familial interactions. Stresses within royal families come to light in essays about Elizabeth I's often dangerous relations with her Tudor siblings and in the sometimes fierce correspondence between the Calvinist Catherine de Bourbon and her brother Henri IV of France after his conversion to Catholicism. While Henri trusted his sister to act as his regent in Navarre and Bearn, he did not trust her to make choices about her faith, and he exerted considerable pressure in a futile effort to win her conversion.

The book's third section, “Drawing the Line,” looks at the problems of competition within families. Most essays study literary subjects, examining tensions caused by incest and confused identities. In literary works, authors can criticize certain behaviors, such as brothers who postpone giving their sisters a dowry in order to use the resource for their business ventures. Cultural norms, such as violence within families, are also open to criticism in literary and historical sources. In an essay based upon historical actors, for instance, a brother's intervention in a legal case allowed his sister to enter the convent instead of returning to her abusive spouse, and he quite possibly saved her life.

In “Hand in Hand,” its final section, the book ends on a positive note as authors describe sibling bonds that empowered individuals. The subjects here are women whose sisters and brothers assisted and enabled them to overcome social constraints and unhealthy relationships. Essays examine brothers who share their education with their sisters, sisters who are dedicated to their abused or deceased sisters, and sisters who demonstrated personal virtue and artistic virtuosity.

This book is representative of a broad array of elites, Catholic and Protestant, from England, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. The collection details a variety of experiences from royal families, literary families, and families that contained members of important religious communities. Sibling Relations and Gender in the Early Modern World is a very solid collection of essays, but the authors’ reliance on print sources results in a bias toward educated elites. The authors in the collection do not look to court records or other sources that might have offered glimpses into sibling relationships among less literate populations. The goal of this collection was to offer an expansive view of sisterhood and brotherhood, and this would have been better accomplished had a wider range of sources been investigated.

The nineteen essays in this volume underscore the fact that in current studies of the early modern period women have more gender than men. Most of the primary subjects of this volume are women, and while readers learn quite a bit about women relating to their sisters and brothers, we learn very little about interactions between brothers.

Ashgate's series, Women and Gender in the Early Modern World, contains some broad-reaching essay collections that expand our knowledge of gender in comparative contexts, to which this book is a welcome addition. The criticisms presented here are minor, and this is an excellent book for scholars and their students.