Servant of the Renaissance: The Poetry and Prose of Nicolaus Olahus (review)
tions to the social unrest that accompanied its appearance in parts of Switzerland. In some ways Yoder’s portrayal of the beginnings of Swiss Anabaptism is surprisingly current. His treatment of church history as a branch of theology and the picture he paints of early Swiss Anabaptism blends well with some recent post-revisionist scholarship in the field, especially Andrea Strübind’s Eifriger als Zwingli: Die frühe Täuferbewegung in der Schweiz (2003). And his focus on interconfessional dialogue as the point to capture theological developments parallels recent focus in the field on the importance of conflict in the formation of confessional identity, as, for example, in Michael Driedger’s Obedient Heretics: Mennonite Identities in Lutheran Hamburg and Altona during the Confessional Age (2002). On the whole, however, Yoder’s analysis of early Swiss Anabaptism shows its age. His insistence on the normative nature of Swiss Anabaptism and denial of any connections between it and the great social movements of the age remain out of step with some of the most important research in the field in the last thirty-five years. Nonetheless, this is still an impressive book. The translation flows well while remaining true to the meaning of the original German text. Snyder’s editor’s preface does an excellent job of laying out the history of the text and placing it in the historiographical context from which it came. No less valuable is Neal Blough’s introduction that focuses more on Yoder the theologian and the relationship between history and theology in his thought. Given Yoder’s status as a theologian and the importance of history in his theology, making this work available to an English-speaking audience is a valuable undertaking. This is, then, an important publication, although, in the end, it will likely be of greater interest to students of twentieth-century Christian theology than scholars of the Renaissance and Reformation. GEOFFREY DIPPLE Augustana College, Sioux Falls