The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II. Edited by Catherine E.Clifford and MassimoFaggioli. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. Pp. xxii, 777. £135.00.

In recent years there has been an explosion of handbooks from major academic publishers.Such volumes must walk a fine line between providing a solid point of reference, and yet offer sufficiently fresh perspectives to avoid becoming the delight of Tolkien's Hobbits: 'books filled with things that they already knew, set out fair and square with no contradictions.'The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II navigates this tightrope exceptionally well.It does so by avoiding the tired polarisations of spirit-letter, progressive-conservative or continuity-reform, and attending not just to the history and texts but to the varied reception of Vatican II.The conciliar documents are given serious and intelligent treatment (albeit with some lacunae, discussed below) but not reified into a historia sacra (p.3), hermetically isolated from the narrative of their formation, the limits of the final text, or the complex plurality of reception.The list of contributors is impressive not only in terms of its scholarship, but in its international and indeed ecumenical composition.It is notable that several of the contributors have been invited as consultants to the 2023 and 2024 synods.A further volume to the same standard examining the reception of Vatican II in the current synodal journey would be very welcome.