The Reformation

A few chapters in Patrick Collinson's history of the Reformation suffer from the enforced brevity of the Modern Library Chronicles imprint, especially the one on politics, which is a dizzying list of names, dates, and wars. The book is much better in its chapters on Luther, the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and the two at the end on the part played by ordinary people in the religious upheavals and the role of art. Ultimately, Collinson suggests the Enlightenment might not have been possible without the Reformation -- the Catholic Church, after all, didn't acknowledge Galileo was correct until 1992 -- but overall the feeling one has on finishing this book is sadness at the irrelevancy of it all. We are in a post-religious world now, for good or ill, and no matter how you dress up the disputes of the 16th century, they really don't matter a damn.