Dyan Elliott demonstrates how scandal-averse policies in conjunction with the requirement of clerical celibacy resulted in the widespread sexual abuse of boys from late antiquity through the later Middle Ages, and argues that the same clerical prerogatives and strategies for the cover-up of abuse remain in place today.

The Barberini Butchers shows how seventeenth-century Rome’s preoccupation with the consumption of meat was the result of papal policy. But this consumption was not sustainable, fueling sensational rumors of murder and cannibalism and, Bradford A. Bouley contends, sparking the outbreak of civil war, as vassals rebelled against papal oversight.

Speaking, Stammering, Singing, Shouting traces the history of what was considered a good, normal, or healthy voice in the nineteenth century. From parrots and preachers to stammerers and singers, the book delves not only into changing medical norms and musical ideals but also into the sometimes painful and awkward daily work of having a voice.

Why Not Build the Mosque explores the Greek state’s attempts to build a mosque. Looking at the project’s decades-long history of failure and its bittersweet realization in 2020, Dimitris Antoniou demonstrates the productivity of unrealized plans and sheds light on what it takes for things to happen in contemporary democracies.

The Unruly Tongue explores the process through which science and medicine, politics, law, literature, and theology informed a new ethics of speech. Offering a new account of the power of words in Western thought, Melissa Vise shows how the regulation of speech became integral to republican values in medieval Europe.