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The history of the South China Sea is a catalyst of international cooperation and conflict. Security in the Indo-Asia-Pacific is largely governed by command of these strategic waters. More than half of global shipping transits the South China Sea, which also holds significant reserves of oil, gas and minerals as well as some of the largest fisheries in the world. Drawing on a team of field-leading researchers, Jenner and Thuy provide an empirical study of the global ocean's most contested sea space. The volume's four parts offer an insightful analysis of the significance of the South China Sea to the international order; sub-national agents of influence on relations between states; the disputes over sovereignty through the analytical prism of international law; and the conflictful region's prospects. The primary source-based conclusion elucidates the agency of history and strategy in the South China Sea.

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interpretations may be admirable, and certainly is realistic given the space available, but does such a view run the risk of turning these volumes into little more than an erudite Cook's tour of a selection of readings of biblical books? Thiselton, I sense, is not keen to advocate such a view. Citing Luz's assertion that 'the biblical texts do not have a simple fixed meaning', he argues, noting Umberto Eco's distinction between open and closed texts, that Luz's view is problematic when it comes to some texts in the Bible which are strongly kerygmatic in content. But he does not go on to discuss how  and  Thessalonians might be construed along that spectrum of possibilities, and it is difficult to get a strong sense of his views in the commentary section of his work, though historical-critical concerns head up each section of the commentary. There is little doubt that reception history will form a significant element in the future of biblical studies, but defining what its purpose is or its guiding principles might be, and indeed why, for instance, scholars trained in biblical studies rather than historians or literary critics or whoever else are best qualified to do it, given their training, remain considerable issues. Anthony Thiselton cannot be expected to address these questions here, though he has in part addressed them elsewhere, and we should, in the end, simply admire the considerable show of learning on display in this volume, which will be an important resource for future interpreters of the Thessalonian correspondence.