"No revolution however drastic has ever involved a total repudiation
of what came before it."*
*
The religious reformations of the sixteenth century were the crucible of
modern Western civilization, profoundly reshaping the identity of
Europe's emerging nation-states. In The Reformation, one of the
preeminent historians of the period, Patrick Collinson, offers a concise
yet thorough overview of the drastic ecumenical revolution of the late
medieval and Renaissance eras. In looking at the sum effect of such
disparate elements as the humanist philosophy of Desiderius Erasmus and
the impact on civilization of movable-type printing and "vulgate"
scriptures, or in defining the differences between the evangelical
(Lutheran) and reformed (Calvinist) churches, Collinson makes clear how
the battles for mens' lives were often hatched in the battles for mens'
souls.
Collinson also examines the interplay of spiritual and temporal matters
in the spread of religious reform to all corners of Europe, and at how
the Catholic Counter-Reformation used both coercion and institutional
reform to retain its ecclesiastical control of Christendom. Powerful and
remarkably well written, The Reformation is possibly the finest
available introduction to this hugely important chapter in religious and
political history.
