Hell and Its Afterlife: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives . Edited by Isabel Moreira and Margaret Toscano. Farmham, U.K.: Ashgate, 2010. xvi + 266 pp. $99.95 cloth.

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)While heaven has been a major topic of recent analysis and conversation, thanks in part to several best-selling books on the subject, hell has been much less discussed and evaluated. Although sizable numbers of Americans continue to profess belief in hell's existence, most of them prefer to ignore the subject. The subject of hell has also received little scholarly attention in recent decades. Therefore, this wide-ranging and impressively researched book is a valuable resource that contributes substantially to our understanding of the topic.In Hell and Its Afterlife , professors of History, English, Religious Studies, Classics, and Media Arts who teach in Canada, England, Switzerland, and the United States examine the place and prominence of hell in the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian traditions during the past two and half millennia. They show that the idea that flagrant sinners will be perpetually punished in an infernal locale has a long history both as a religious concept and a cultural metaphor. Whether hell has been considered an actual place or a figurative idea, it has often been strongly asserted and its nature has been fiercely debated because hell has served as a vehicle for discussing such paramount issues as "human identity . . . justice, forgiveness, suffering, political affiliation, and death" (1). According to the editors, these essays show that hell has served the "positive" purposes of arguing that souls exist eternally, providing reassurance that divine judgment will be just, and affirming "cosmic meaningfulness, even in the midst of monumental suffering" (2). Negatively, hell has been used to condemn people without any recourse, stigmatize others, repudiate fellowship, and destroy loving relationships. Moreover, in various eras the concept of hell has been employed to highlight the power, love, and justice of God and the crucial role of the church in salvation. Emphasis on the horrors of hell has encouraged individuals to reflect on their sinfulness, repent of their wrongdoing, and act morally.These essays cover much ground both historically and thematically: they analyze how hell was perceived in ancient Roman and Greek culture; in medieval society, post-Reformation England, and Spanish America; by evangelicals, Mormons, and James Joyce; and in contemporary urban communities, comic books, horror films, and the "war on terror." Several essays specifically and the book as a whole make the same argument about hell that I make in my book Heaven in the American Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011) about heaven: conceptions of the afterlife have changed substantially over time in response to the cultural trends, problems, and concerns of various eras. In many ways, images of hell (and heaven) reflect prevailing cultural assumptions about what and who is valued and despised. For example, by the nineteenth century, as greater emphasis was placed on the dignity and worth of individuals and rehabilitation began to replace painful, punitive treatment of lawbreakers, hell came to be viewed much less as a place of physical torments. …