See more of this title: Religion and the Early Modern State: Views from China, Russia, and the West

How did state power impinge on the religion of the common people? The contributing historians of this collection uncover the process of "confessionalization," or "acculturation," by which officials of state and church collaborated in ambitious programs of Protestant or Catholic reform. Thirteen essays reveal a spectrum of possibilities which early modern governments tried to achieve by regulating religious life, as well as how religious communities consequently evolved in new directions.