The Reformation: A History

The National Book Critics Circle Awardwinning history of the Reformationfrom the New York Times bestselling author of Christianity At a time when men and women were prepared to killand be killedfor their faith, the Protestant Reformation tore the Western world apart. Acclaimed as the definitive account of these epochal events, Diarmaid MacCulloch's award-winning history brilliantly re-creates the religious battles of priests, monarchs, scholars, and politiciansfrom the zealous Martin Luther and his Ninety-Five Theses to the polemical John Calvin to the radical Igantius Loyola, from the tortured Thomas Cranmer to the ambitious Philip II. Drawing together the many strands of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and ranging widely across Europe and the New World, MacCulloch reveals as never before how these dramatic upheavals affected everyday livesoverturning ideas of love, sex, death, and the supernatural, and shaping the modern age.