Satan's Rhetoric: A Study of Renaissance Demonology. Armando Maggi
"theatre" promoted through publicity and financing (128-29) and Hsia's interpretation of "the paradoxes" of submission and resistance embodied by Saint Theresa all invite the attentive reader and student to look at the complexity of historical experience. Hsia's conclusion is all the more important for its decisive emphasis: the "twin impulses of Catholic renewal — control and innovation" (38) made the looser medieval social hierarchies more rigid and intensified gender distinctions to the detriment of forms of late medieval religious experience where female religious had more freedom and where the public character of devotion was less uniform and regimented. There may be an inclination to read Hsia as the now standard introduction to the subject of Catholic reform. Precisely, however, because Hsia makes deliberate and skilled choices in presenting the content and dynamic of Catholic renewal this book deserves debate, not mere praise. Although far from indifferent to questions of spirituality and individual religious experience, this remains an institutional and social history most carefully attuned to social and political outcomes that result from the interplay of religion, politics, and social privilege. Hsia reaches frequently for perspectives "from below" on Catholic renewal. But all three books underscore how much more work is needed to analyze the emotional and psychological experience of Catholic reform from the lay perspective. ANN W. RAMSEY University Extension, University of Texas, Austin