For many students of medieval and early modern Europe, the history of Bohemia is one that intersects only occasionally with the standard and more familiar European narrative. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, there is Charles IV and the magnificent imperial capital he built, the dramatic emergence of Jan Hus and the crusades that came in his wake. Prague shines once more in the following century through the lavish patronage of its Habsburg prince, Rudolf II. The story closes shortly thereafter with tragedy, the infamous defenestration, and the cataclysm of the Thirty Years’ War. Apart from these more celebrated moments, however, the culture and history of pre-modern Bohemia often lies locked behind a language that most Anglophone scholars do not read. Sadly, such is the fate of Bohemian humanism. While generations of Czech scholars have devoted significant time and attention to this topic, too much of that work remains on the far side of that linguistic curtain separating the Slavic world from the West.

The situation is fortunately beginning to change. Lucie Storchová, a research fellow at the Institute of Philosophy at the Czech Academy of Sciences, is part of a younger scholarly generation who is very much aware of a broader European and North American audience. Her earlier publications include a 2014 monograph in English on Bohemian school humanism in the second half of the sixteenth century and a more recent reference guide to humanism in the Czech lands for which she was a lead editor. For this volume, Řád přírody, řád společnosti, Storchová considers Bohemian humanism in an explicitly transnational context. She focuses on the University of Wittenberg, specifically the influence of Philip Melanchthon, on the growth and development of a humanist literary culture in the Czech lands in the second half of the sixteenth century.

Storchová divides her investigation into five chapters. In the first, she outlines theoretical models to help understand cultural exchange. The following two chapters are squarely based in Wittenberg, where she provides a useful overview of humanist learning at the university. In this context, she works from the knowledge and understanding of the celestial sphere to the earthly world, from the human body, its anatomy, spirit, soul, and affections, to natural law, ethics, and societal institutions. The final two chapters, which are the real heart of the book, continue the story in the Czech lands. Here, Storchová considers the influence and adaption of Melanchthon in Latin humanist literature and the vernaculars, Czech and German, respectively. Throughout her study, she effectively demonstrates that Czech humanism was no pale reflection of its German neighbor. The busy print shops of the region produced a steady stream of humanist literature aimed for domestic consumption. She gives significant attention to the printer Daniel Adam of Veleslavín, whose house produced among many works a new translation of Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History. Czech authors at times modified Melanchthon's Lutheran sensibilities for an Utraquist audience that was not completely comfortable with his open Protestant sentiments.

The Order of Nature has at times an encyclopedic feel—which should not be surprising considering its author has edited several reference works—and for those not as familiar with Czech humanism, the range of coverage is useful. Storchová may be at her best, however, with her analysis, which at least in part has a decidedly gendered element. The focus on the body, the proper control of its emotions and affections as taught by Melanchthon at Wittenberg and applied by his pupils in Bohemia, had broader lessons for society, for it was also a means to legitimize social inequalities and subordination to properly ordained authorities. Texts considering household management projected a model of patriarchal authority applied to institutions across society. Though Storchová has composed what is without doubt the definitive study of Melanchthon's influence on the humanist culture of the Czech lands, her accomplishment extends beyond that more circumscribed objective. This is an important book for anyone seeking to understand the nature of the Melanchthonian educational program. From Sachiko Kusukawa to Charlotte Methuen, from Heinz Scheible to Timothy Wengert, The Order of Nature engages the current scholarship in the field as it reassesses the nature and reception of Melanchthonianism not just in the Czech lands but the phenomenon more generally. We can only hope that the book receives the notice it deserves and finds a translator either for an English or German edition. Until then, Storchová has provided a lengthy English summary of the book that ably introduces the Anglophone reader to this fascinating world.