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The first historical biography, for many decades, of Martin Luther (1483-1546), whose rebellion against the authority of the Church helped to create the modern world

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2017

Selected as a Book of the Year by the New Statesman, Spectator, History Today, Guardian and Sunday Times

When Martin Luther nailed a sheet of paper to the church door of a small university town on 31 October 1517, he set off a process that changed the Western world for ever.

Luther´s ideas spread like wildfire. His attack on the Church soon convulsed Germany, divided Europe and polarised people´s beliefs. They triggered decades of religious persecution, social unrest and war. And in the long run, his ideas paradoxically helped break the grip of religion in every sphere of life.

But the man who started the Reformation was deeply flawed. He was a religious fundamentalist, a Jew-hater and a political reactionary. He was a fervent believer who was tormented by doubt, a brilliant writer who shaped the German language and a vicious and foul-mouthed polemicist. He was a married ex-monk who liberated human sexuality from the stigma of sin, but also a man who insisted that women should know their place. For him the Devil was not just a figure of speech but a very real and physical presence.

In this first historical biography for many decades, distinguished historian Lyndal Roper gives us a flesh-and-blood figure, warts and all. She reveals the often contradictory psychological forces that drove Luther forward - insecurity and self-righteousness, anger and humility - and the dynamics they unleashed which turned a small act of protest into a battle against the power of the Church.

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"This is a smart, accessible, authoritative biography of one of the most dynamic figures in European history. Lyndal Roper writes with clarity and discernment, so that nothing stands between the reader and her grimly fascinating subject; she earths the reformer, situating him psychically as well as geographically in a Germany she describes as vividly as if we lived there: mining towns as well as lecture halls, courts as well as cathedrals. She creates a context for a man who arouses both admiration and horror in the modern reader. Here he stands: never more vocal, more controversial, more compelling" Hilary Mantel

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Lyndal Roper is Regius Professor of History at Oxford and one of the most respected historians at work in Britain today. An expert on early modern Germany, her previous books include a study of witchcraft, Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany. In 2016 she received the prestigious Gerda Henkel Foundation Prize for her work on Luther and the Reformation.

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