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Historical Voices for Tolerance in an Age of Persecution Edited by Vincent Carey, Ronald Bogdan, Elizabeth Walsh $40 / Folger Shakespeare Lib. / 2005 A professor of history at Plattsburgh State University of New York, Vincent Carey has compiled and edited this fascinating study for the Folger Library of Washington, DC, drawing from the Folger's collection of manuscripts and documents from the 16th and 17th centuries. Indeed, the volume was published to accompany the exhibition at the Folger that goes by the same name, and the final quarter of the book contains a catalog of the exhibition, with descriptions of engravings by Albrecht Dürer, documents by Martin Luther, artifacts illustrating the miseries of religious war, and encounters with Africa and Islam. Essays by reputed academics, such as Boston University's Barbara Diefendorf on the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, explore topics from religious dissent, the Puritan revolution in England, and Protestant and Catholic reformations in France and Germany, to the plight of Jews in early modern Europe, the way Islam was regarded in the west, and the subjugation of the Irish. If the 20th century was the century of mass extermination, the Renaissance was no less a time of religious persecution, much of which paved the way for the genocide of the last century. The material in Voices for Tolerance richly demonstrates this, from the papers and drawings taken from the Folger collection to the insightful essays. University of Maryland professor Donna Hamilton's essay on the persecution of Catholics in renaissance England during the Tudor era, and the University of Georgia's Sujata Iyengar's examination of Africans in England and Scotland, are just two examples that explore the depth of intolerance and the widespread nature of persecution during this era. The book itself is distinctively shaped and has a striking appearance: a foot in length by five inches wide, it hints at the stark picture of man's inhumanity to his fellow man. The woodcuts and drawings reproduced inside-some illustrating the essays, others from the catalog- show severed heads on pikes, posters about the Devil, obscene caricatures of the Pope, and sinister portrayals of Muslims and Jews. The voices of tolerance are hard to hear in the cacophonous clamor of righteous, violent persecution done, ironically, in the name of God. The voices belong to Thomas More, who preached tolerance and lost his head on the chopping block for it; French essayist Michel de Montaigne; and the humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus, who called for an end to war. This book is not just a vivid portrayal of a bigoted era of history but a cautionary insight into human cruelty that should resonate with readers today. —Charles Rammelkamp

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