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No other German has shaped the history of early-modern Europe more than Martin Luther.
In this comprehensive and balanced biography we see Luther as a rebel, but not as a lone hero; as a soldier in a mighty struggle for the universal reform of Christianity and its role in the world. The foundation of Protestantism changed the religious landscape of Europe, and subsequently the world, but the author chooses to show not simply as a reformer, but as an individual.
In his study of the Wittenberg monk, Heinz Schilling - one of Germany's leading social and political historians - gives the reader a rounded view of a difficult, contradictory character, who changed the world by virtue of his immense will.
List of contents
- Prologue: Living in an Age of Faith and an Age in Transition
- PART ONE: Childhood, Education, and the First Years as a Monk, 1483-1511
- 1: 1484 - New Departures for Christendom
- 2: Childhood and Youth
- 3: Crisis and Flight to the Monastery
- PART TWO: Wittenberg and the Beginnings of the Reformation, 1511-1525
- 4: Wittenberg
- 5: Eleutherios - The Birth of a Free Man
- 6: The Reformer - Standing His Ground before Church, Emperor, and Empire
- 7: Beginning to Labour for the Cause
- 8: Contesting Interpretation within the Evangelical Camp
- 9: Arrived in the World -Marriage, Family, and a Large Household
- PART THREE: Prophetic Confidence, but Temporal Failure, 1525-1546
- 10: Evangelical Renewal of Church and Society
- 11: "But We Christians Are Part of a Different Struggle" - Facing the Demands of the World
- 12: Conflicted Emotions: God-Given Joy and Apocalyptic Fear
- 13: Dying in Christ - "We Are All Beggars, That is True"
- Epilogue: Failure and Success: Luther and the Modern World
About the author
Heinz Schilling, geb. 1942, ist Professor für Geschichte der Frühen Neuzeit an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Summary
A comprehensive and balanced biography of Martin Luther from one of Germany's leading social and political historians. It paints Luther not as a lone hero, but as a soldier in a mighty struggle for religion and its role in the world; a difficult, contradictory character, who changed the world by virtue of his immense will.
Additional text
Heinz Schilling's major new biography of Luther ... gives the most balanced account of Luther's life to date. Unlike so many biographers of Luther, Schilling is not a theologian or even a church historian by training. He is one of the leading German experts on late medieval and sixteenth-century German history, and he places Luther firmly in the context of his time: a rebel in an age of unheaval ... [review of German edition]
Report
Shilling's account succeeds in arriving at balanced, but never insipid, conclusions about Luther's supreme contribution to the Reformation without ignoring the destructive aspects of his personality. Graeme Murdock, The Huguenot Society Journal
