Conversion and Colonization in Anglo-Saxon England. Edited by Catherine E. Karkov and Nicholas Howe. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 138. Essays in Anglo-Saxon Studies, 2. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2006. Pp. xx + 247. $40.

Conversion and Colonization in Anglo-Saxon England is the first volume of what is sure to be an important series of collected essays published by the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists. the volume is based on the theme of the society's 2003 meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona, and eight of its nine essays are written by presenters at the conference. Catherine Karkov and the late Nicholas Howe introduce the book's twin themes of conversion and colonization as two overlapping but not necessarily synonymous historical phenomena. both concepts emphasize processes of cultural exchange and transformation (be they political, religious, artistic, or linguistic), allowing us to view Anglo-Saxon England and its productions as varied, hybrid, and ever-changing entities, and to combat the tendency to treat the era of Anglo-Saxon England as an undifferentiated period of history with a single, static, monolithic culture. the book's topic necessarily calls to mind the politics of adopting new beliefs or cultural and political systems, as well as "those things that survive conversion, those things that are post-colonial" (p. xix). the editors situate this book as part of the recent turn toward postcolonial studies as a critical approach to the Middle Ages, visible in collections such as Jeffrey Jerome Cohen's The Postcolonial Middle Ages (2000) and Ananya Kabir and Deanne Williams's Postcolonial Approaches to the European Middle Ages (2005). However, Colonization and Conquest is the only collection to date that focuses solely on Anglo-Saxon England from a generally postcolonial perspective.