The Reformation: A Very Short Introduction

The Reformation is one of the pivotal moments in all of World History, and not just history of Religion. It encompassed almost all of the Christendom, and its ramifications had been felt far beyond it. Most Christians today live in the palpable shadow of Reformation, and yet very few are completely aware of its extent and history. Although the full history is probably beyond any single book's reach, this very short introduction provides us with an excellent and informative overview. One of the things that I like the most about this book is the fact that it doesn't treat reformation in vacuum, but it rather puts it in context of other political and religious upheavals of the 16th and 17th centuries. It also doesn't make the (protestant) reformation as much of a discontinuity as most people have come to think of it over the past few centuries, but it rather points out many points of contact and continuity within and without the Catholic Church in late Middle Ages. In fact, there is such a thing as Catholic reformation and this book dedicates a considerable amount of space to it. The book shuns two extreme views of reformation - as a completely societal development and as a purely religious one. It acknowledges the great importance that religion had in people's lives at the time, which can be very counterintuitive to many people today, but it also doesn't downplay the purely secular considerations as well. In fact, the distinction between the two would have been very hard to grasp for people at that time. The book also talks about the major figures of Protestant Reformation - Luther, Calvin and Zwingli - and discusses the contributions that each one of them made. The timeframe that this book covers is approximately that of late 15th century until the early 18th. As it is quite obvious, this is a lot of history to put in a single book, but Peter Marshall does a remarkable job of accentuating the highlights of that period that pertain to Reformation and does so with remarkable ease. The result is a book that is very readable and informative, and a good stepping stone for further exploration of this fascinating subject.