This book, a revision of the 1996 edition, is an ambitious effort to give a summary of Benedictine monasticism in one volume. At times a catalogue of events and figures that is difficult to read straight through, it provides useful vignettes and descriptions of a wide variety of lesser-known monastic figures, particularly female ones. Perhaps best thought of as a historical encyclopedia of monastic figures and topics, the book contains extensive notes (forty-nine pages) and bibliography (twenty-eight pages). While early parts of the book rely heavily on the Benedictine historians of the last century, such as Schmitz, Knowles, and Hilpish, the scholarly apparatus is up-to-date with references to numerous recent scholarly monographs.

Among pre-Benedictine sources, Cassian merits one paragraph, while Irish monasticism is given several pages; the section on Anglo-Saxon monasticism provides sketches of Hilda of Whitby and Ethelreda of Ely. The section on Boniface includes a longer discussion of his female contemporaries: Lioba, Walburga, and Thecla. The Carolingian, Cluniac, and Cistercian reforms are covered briefly, followed by a more extensive treatment of the monastic foundations in the German lands and in Flanders, with descriptions of the twelfth-century mystics Elizabeth of Shönau and Hildegard of Bingen and the thirteenth-century mystics Gertrude and Mechthild of Hackeborn and Gertrude the Great and Mechthild of Helfta. The melodrama of Abelard and Heloise is covered, concentrating on the life of Heloise's monastery of the Paraclete. The section on monastic life in England gives sketches of Julian of Norwich, Christina of Markyate, and the Maid of Kent. The numerous and complex reform movements of the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries are chronicled, such as the Saint Justina congregation, the Celestines, Olivetans, and Silvestrines.

More than half of the book deals with the revival of monastic life during the Catholic Reformation in the seventeenth century, its decline in the eighteenth century, its near-total destruction in the French Revolutionary/Napoleonic period, and its remarkable resurgence in the nineteenth century. Among many monastic groups in the seventeenth century one of the most notable was the Maurist congregation in France and its famous exemplar, Jean Mabillon, who through work in paleography, linguistics, and chronology established standards for assessing the veracity of historical texts. Useful descriptions are given of important but neglected female figures, such as the disciples of Augustine Baker, Katherine Gascoigne, and Gertrude More. A remarkable but little-known figure is Elena Cornaro Piscopia, a Benedictine oblate who became the first woman to earn a doctorate at a university and is revered as one of the great scholars produced by the University of Padua.

Accounts are given of the rise of the Solesmes, Beuronese, and Subiaco congregations in Europe, followed by more detailed accounts of the American Cassinese and Swiss American congregations in America. Wimmer and Martin Marty are given detailed treatments; the Wimmer-Riepp controversy is covered in detail with a description of how the canonical result affected the lives of American women religious. Monastic life in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century France is a specialty of the author, which is apparent in the extensive chapter on the expulsion of monastic and religious orders from France from 1901 to 1904, a story that can only seem bizarre and astounding to American readers, though it is essential for understanding French monasticism. By contrast the Kulturkampf in Germany is hardly mentioned.

Much of the book is difficult to access for anyone not already in possession of a knowledge of monastic history; as well, the book could have been improved by better editing and proofreading. Overall, however, it brings together an enormous amount of information not easily found elsewhere, making it a valuable research instrument. Hence it is recommended for libraries that maintain collections on monastic and religious life, for scholars, graduate students, and upper-level undergraduates who do research in those areas, and for monastic and religious houses, particularly those that deal with formation.