Memory and Identity: The Huguenots in France and the Atlantic Diaspora.

Memory and Identity: The Huguenots in France and the Atlantic Diaspora. Edited by Bertrand Van Ruymbeke and Randy J. Sparks. The Carolina Lowcountry and the Atlantic World. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, c. 2003. Pp. xvi, 335. $39.95, ISBN 1-57003-484-2.)

This collection of essays explores the experience of Huguenots from the late sixteenth century to the late eighteenth century in Europe, North America, the Caribbean, and South Africa. Several of the essays also take up the question of memory and identity among nineteenth- and twentieth-century Huguenots. Not only does the book reflect the vitality of Huguenot history, but it speaks as well to questions about the economic and social functioning of the Atlantic world, early modern Catholic-Protestant relations, immigrant experiences in varied local settings, and memory construction. Fourteen of the essays are drawn from those delivered at the 1997 symposium "Out of New Babylon: The Huguenots and their Diaspora," sponsored by the Program in the Carolina Lowcountry and the Atlantic World at the College of Charleston.

Although the essays vary in approach and interpretation, several themes emerge from the book. First, French Protestants in the diaspora maintained a strong sense of Huguenot identity (defined by the French language and Calvinism) during the first emigrant generation, and many maintained a sense of community that connected dispersed family members and economic partners. Second, as merchants or craftsmen, Huguenots played an important role in the commercial development of many of their new locations. Indeed, several authors question the Calvinist commitment of Huguenot refugees, suggesting that many left France for economic opportunity as much as for religious resolve. Third, during the second and third generations, descendants of migrants immersed themselves in their host societies, changing language and church affiliation. Fourth, Huguenot consciousness reemerged during the late nineteenth century in Europe and the Americas as descendants re-created their histories.

The book begins with Huguenots in France under the Edict of Nantes, then explores emigrants (before and after the revocation of the edict) and their descendants in the diaspora. A concluding chapter examines Huguenot memory. While Bertrand Van Ruymbeke's introduction is insightful, Willem Frijhoff's piece on Huguenots in the Dutch Republic may offer the better contextual outline. Van Ruymbeke argues that "whereas in France Huguenots resisted assimilation within the French Catholic majority group," "French Protestantism paradoxically survived in the diaspora by losing its core identity ..." (pp. 2, 17). This argument indeed reflects the conclusions of the pieces on the diaspora.

However, the articles on Huguenots in France present a complicated picture of the place of Protestants there. Diane C. Margolf's essay on law stresses contention between Protestants and Catholics, but Raymond A. Mentzer's illustrates the strife within the Huguenot community. Keith P. Luria suggests that under the Edict of Nantes, residents of mixed Protestant and Catholic communities "concerned with economic necessity, neighborliness, kinship, and power relations, often ignored the law and the supposed chasm between the confessions ..." (p. 61).

Timothy Fehler emphasizes conflict between French and Dutch refugees in Emden, Germany, during the sixteenth century. Charles Littleton and John Miller both note that Huguenots in England commonly rejected the discipline of the French Church. Littleton's article also points out that early-seventeenth-century London Huguenots nonetheless sustained the church, which then could support refugees arriving in the 1680s and 1690s. Willem Frijhoff likewise argues that sixteenth-century immigrants to the Dutch Republic established congregations on which later refugees depended. Moreover, as Dutch elites came to value French culture and language, French churches found themselves full of non-French congregants. Carolyn Lougee Chapell traces the activities of one dispersed family in Ireland, England, Holland, and Germany to illustrate several of the book's themes, showing family members trying to keep hold of their connections to one another even as they adapted to their respective host societies.

Articles by Jon Butler, R. C. Nash, Joyce D. Goodfriend, Leslie Choquette, Gerard Lafleur and Lucien Abenon, and Philippe Denis address the experiences of Huguenots in North America, the Caribbean, and South Africa. The most innovative among these chapters include Nash's essay, which shows that South Carolina Huguenots contributed disproportionately to the development of the colony's trade contacts, and Choquette's article, which argues a stronger Protestant presence in New France than historiography suggests. Several authors, including Margolf, Frijhoff, Chappell, and Bernard Cottret, explore the functioning of historical memory. Because of this book's broad geographical and chronological scope and the high quality of many of its essays, it makes a strong case that understanding Huguenots more fully will add significantly to our expanding picture of the early modern Atlantic world.

APRIL LEE HATFIELD

Texas A&M University