In early modern Germany, religious conversion was a profoundly social and political phenomenon rather than purely an act of private conscience. Because social norms and legal requirements demanded that every subject declare membership in one of the state-sanctioned Christian churches, the act of religious conversion regularly tested the geographical and political boundaries separating Catholics and Protestants. In a period when church and state cooperated to impose religious conformity, regulate confessional difference, and promote moral and social order, the choice to convert was seen as a disruptive act of disobedience. Investigating the tensions inherent in the creation of religious communities and the fashioning of religious identities in Germany after the Thirty Years' War, Duane Corpis examines the complex social interactions, political implications, and cultural meanings of conversion in this moment of German history.

In "Crossing the Boundaries of Belief, " Corpis assesses how conversion destabilized the rigid political, social, and cultural boundaries that separated one Christian faith from another and that normally tied individuals to their local communities of belief. Those who changed their faiths directly challenged the efforts of ecclesiastical and secular authorities to use religious orthodoxy as a tool of social discipline and control. In its examination of religious conversion, this study thus offers a unique opportunity to explore how women and men questioned and redefined their relationships to local institutions of power and authority, including the parish clergy, the city government, and the family.

"Another World Was Possible" modifies the slogan of the World Social Forum--an annual meeting formed as an alternative to the more elite World Economic Forum--"Another world is possible!" The change from present to past tense in the phrase acknowledges the importance of social movements from the past century that have worked for alternative visions of justice and freedom leading up to and continuing to influence current movements. This special issue of "Radical History Review" highlights the global and transnational dimensions of radical history that are less visible in other historical accounts whose horizons are national or local or that are oriented toward either "centers" or "peripheries." By emphasizing social movements and political contention, this issue offers a globalized radical history that enriches the wider field of world history.
The collection argues that radical movements offer an intriguing counternarrative to the more familiar history of imperialism and globalization in the twentieth century. One essay illuminates the radical anticolonial and diasporic South Asian Ghadar movement, which worked to free India from British rule. Another delves into the global politics of South African radicalism between antifascism and apartheid in the 1940s and 1950s. A third essay explores the encounter between U.S. black activists and Cuban revolutionaries in the 1960s. In an interview, a Latina activist illustrates the transnational scope of contemporary social movements by describing her organizing work among immigrants in Atlanta, Georgia.
"Contributors." Adina Black, Mansour Bonakdarian, Duane J. Corpis, Ian Christopher Fletcher, Yael Simpson Fletcher, Robert Gregg, BobHannigan, Chia Yin Hsu, Madhavi Kale, R. J. Lambrose, Christopher Joon-Hai Lee, Teresa Meade, Adelina Nicholls, Enrique C. Ochoa, Susan D. Pennybacker, Maia Ramnath, Besenia Rodriguez
"Another World Was Possible" is the companion issue to "Two, Three, Many Worlds" ("Radical History Review," #91).