A Religious Revolution: The Protestant Reformation is the fourth installment in Henri Daniel-Rops' magnificent History of the Church of Christ. This volume, which includes the last three chapters of that work, examines in detail the Protestant phenomenon: first, a careful study of the tragedy of Martin Luther and the eventful early days of "Lutheranism" on the theological, social, and political planes, second, a vivid account of John Calvin and his horrifying success in organizing the threads of Lutheranism into a force capable of rending the garments of Christianity, and third, a meticulous synopsis of Protestantism's development from a religious revolt, concerned with theological and doctrinal distinctions, to a fully established political institution with influence across Europe. Alongside Luther and Calvin stand Popes Clement VII and Paul III, Erasmus and King Henry VIII, and Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher.


A superb presentation of the tumultuous years of 1350-1564, A Religious Revolution: The Protestant Reformation brings to life an epoch in which "everything everywhere was changing and falling apart, systems opposed systems, new dogmatisms clash with old, rigid formulae only half conceal uncertainty and anguish, the whole of human activity held increasingly fast in the grip of an indefinable kind of agonizing fermentation.