The National Book Critics Circle Award-winning history of the Reformation--from
the New York Times bestselling author of Christianity At a time when men and
women were prepared to kill--and be killed--for 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
politicians--from 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 lives--overturning ideas of love, sex, death, and the
supernatural, and shaping the modern age.