‘Reformation:

Allen Lane

‘Reformation’ charts a seismic shift in European culture that marked the beginning of the modern world.

At a time when men and women were prepared to kill – and be killed – for their faith, the Reformation tore the western world apart. Acclaimed as the definitive account of these epochal events, Diarmaid MacCulloch’s history brilliantly re-creates the religious battles of priests, monarchs, scholars and politicians, from the zealous Martin Luther nailing his Theses to the door of a Wittenburg church to the radical Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order; from Thomas Cranmer, martyred for his reforms, to the ambitious Philip II, unwavering in his campaign against Europe’s ‘heretics’.

Weaving together the many strands of Reformation and Counter-Reformation, ranging widely across Europe and even to the new world, MacCulloch also reveals as never before how these upheavals affected everyday lives – overturning ideas of love, sex, death and the supernatural, and shaping the modern age