“Roman Jewry in the mid-sixteenth century,” notes Kenneth Stow in the introduction to this stimulating volume, “offers an excellent venue for seeking to answer the theoretical question of how a distinct and distinctive minority created the cultural tools to cope with a difficult, ambivalent, and sometimes hostile environment” (p. 5). Stow's reference to “cultural tools” reflects the implicit “Cultural Studies” orientation of his book, an orientation already indicated in the book's title as well as in its opening sentence, which declares that “this study is about strategies of cultural survival.” Yet unlike many other works of a similar orientation, Stow's is based on years of archival research, primarily among the notarial records of the Roman Jewish community. Some two thousand documents from these records have been ably registered and summarized by Stow in the two volumes of his The Jews in Rome (Leiden, 1995–1997) to which the current volume (based on the Kennedy lectures delivered at Smith College in 1996), serves as an attractive companion.