Jeremiah W. Cataldo is a history professor with a history of publishing books on reading the Hebrew bible from the perspective of cultural studies. His particular interest is the development of biblical monotheism in Yehud, as a result of the status of the province within the Persian empire. In one book he addresses the historical situation described in the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah and the way it reflects a theocratic political system and in a second study he showed the way the failed theocracy in Yehud contributed to the exclusionary nature of the form of monotheism that developed out of the Hebrew scriptures. In his own words on the first page of the introduction to the present book, the thesis of these studies boils down to this: "fear and conflict are driving forces behind the historical development of monotheism" (vi). In this new book, Cataldo extends the argument to include Christian monotheism, with its own troubled relationship with the Roman empire.