The Reformation

The Reformation and the Counter-Reformation it provoked are one of the great discontinuities in European and world history. The dramatic changes that began when Martin Luther proclaimed his ninety-five theses in Wittenberg in 1517 were of a different order to anything that had gone before. In the following two hundred years, the Christian world broke apart and the nature not just of religion but also of politics, thought, society and culture all changed utterly. The course of history down to our own time has been decisively shaped by this revolution.

Diarmaid MacCulloch was brought up in a country rectory in East Anglia and studied in Cambridge, doing his doctoral research with Sir Geoffrey Elton. He is a fellow of St. Cross College, Oxford, and Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University. He is also a fellow of the British Academy, of the Royal Historical Society and of the Society of Antiquaries of London