Ten survey histories of the Reformation

By Jennifer Woodruff Tait

A little while ago we started the first of what I hope is a series of posts listing resources for serious readers to help understand different eras and figures in church history. That post focused on American religious history.

Today, I'm back with some survey histories of the Reformation. We've got a four-issue series honoring the 500th anniversary of the Reformation coming up in the years leading up to 2017--the first issue will release next summer--and so as part of that, I'll be doing some Reformation booklists here every so often.

There are many more good books on this topic than I have room for here, but start with these (listed alphabetically) to understand the Reformation from a "bird's eye view."

1. ___LINK_START_1Thomas Brady, German Histories in the Age of Reformations, 1400-1650___LINK_END_1. We have a running joke in our house whenever my husband (a Reformation historian) mentions "Tom Brady" and I always assume he means the Patriots' quarterback, when instead he means the distinguished historian from UC Berkley who wrote this detailed book on the history of the Reformation in Germany.
2. ___LINK_START_2Euan Cameron, ___LINK_END_2___LINK_START_3The European Reformation___LINK_END_3. One of the classics in the field: readable, balanced, wide-ranging geographically, and fair to theological and political/cultural issues and motivations.
3. ___LINK_START_4Brad Gregory, The Unintended Reformation___LINK_END_4. Covers the same ground as #7 (McGrath)--Protestantism's spread from the 1500s to the 2000s--but from a fairly negative perspective. (The two books are probably best read in tandem! One or the other is bound to challenge you, depending on your own perspective.)
4. ___LINK_START_5Hans Hillebrand, The Division of Christendom.___LINK_END_5 Revised edition of a comprehensive, classic work, with extensive coverage of the theological issues at stake.
5. ___LINK_START_6Carter Lindberg, ___LINK_END_6___LINK_START_7The European Reformations.___LINK_END_7 A textbook, but a good one; comprehensive coverage with lots of maps, pictures, chronologies, and suggestions for further reading.
6. ___LINK_START_8Diarmaid McCulloch, Reformation: A History___LINK_END_8. A massive work that goes from 1490 to 1700 and covers all aspects of many reform movements across Europe. (It can be slow going--you might want to read some of the shorter books on this list first. :-))
7. ___LINK_START_9Alister McGrath, Christianity's Dangerous Idea: The Protestant Revolution.___LINK_END_9 The beginning and spread of Reformation ideas from the sixteenth century to our own day; a much more positive take on what Gregory (#3) reads as negative.
8. ___LINK_START_10Steven Ozment, The Reformation in the Cities.___LINK_END_10 Focuses on the way the Reformation grew and collected followers in Germany and Switzerland.
9. ___LINK_START_11James Payton, Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting Some Common Misunderstandings___LINK_END_11. There are all sorts of things that seem "common knowledge" about the Reformation that repay a closer and more nuanced look, which Payton gives them here.
10. ___LINK_START_12Merry Wisener-Hanks, ___LINK_END_12___LINK_START_13Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe..___LINK_END_13 Another textbook, but another good one: broad coverage of all sorts of topics relating to women's roles and lives in the era of the Reformation.