The Reform of Christian Doctrine in the Catechisms of Peter Canisius, written by Thomas Flowers, S.J.

Catholicism itself.Yet, as their presence conditioned the confessionalization of German life until the Enlightenment, their suppression (until 1814) and subsequent very gradual reappearance diminished their significance in the crucial first half of nineteenth century modernizing.Holzem's massive account is a tour de force-not only a cogent account of Christianity's adaptation to modernity in a new German nation and empire but also an amazingly useful compilation of individual stories and episodes.That emphasis adds to his argument about the importance of "typologies of sanctification"-forms of individual piety crafted within each confession.Without going deeply into some of the arguments (necessitating another fifteen hundred words!), one can safely argue that Andreas Holzem's contribution will crystallize and shape the historiographical debate over German Christianity for decades to come.