1025 pages, Simon & Schuster, ISBN-13: 978-0671610500
The Story of Civilization is an 11-volume set of books by the American writer, historian and philosopher Will Durant that focuses on a philosophical understanding of Western history that was intended for the general reader. Written over a period of more than fifty years, Volume 6: The Reformation was originally published in 1957, and covers the history of Europe outside of Italy from around 1300 to 1564, focusing especially on the Protestant Reformation – speaking of which, to illustrate just how comprehensive this volume is, the man who can be said to have launched said Reformation, Martin Luther, doesn’t even make an appearance until several hundred pages in; meanwhile, the world in which he lived and which he changed so emphatically has already been described and introduced.
While I know that Luther is more than just the arch-heretic who nailed his Ninety-five Theses, or Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences to the doors of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, Durant provides a better understanding of the man to those for whom he is nothing more than that. And that is what Durant does, again and again and again; he describes not only what happened but why: why the Church waged war and fattened its treasury to maintain that precarious grip on power; why Germany led the way in the Reformation because of all of the money going from Germany to Rome; why Luther went after Rome so hard and got caught up in trading one infallibility for another; even to why Henry VIII was so desperate to produce a male heir. After reading The Reformation I found that, though I didn’t always like what was being done, I found that I understood better why it was done in the first place. As to what this secular philosopher thought of all of this religious wrangling, I can’t recall a more nuanced and sympathetic defense of the Christian Church as this one:
Through a formative millennium, from Constantine to Dante, the Christian Church offered the gifts of religion to men and states. It molded the figure of Jesus into a divine embodiment of virtues by which rough barbarians might be shamed into civilization. It formulated a creed that made every man’s life a part, however modest, of a sublime cosmic drama; it bound each individual in a momentous relation with a God Who had created him, Who had spoken to him in sacred Scripture, Who had descended from heaven to suffer ignominy and death in atonement for the sins of humanity, and Who had founded the church as the repository of His teaching and the earthly agents of His power. Year by year the magnificent drama grew; saints and martyrs died for the creed, and bequeathed their example and their merits to the faithful. A hundred forms – a hundred thousand works – of art interpreted the drama and made it vivid even for letterless minds.
Mind you, this was written by the same man who said that “I am a theological skeptic, believing in neither the warlike God of the Hebrews, nor the punishing and rewarding God of the Christians. I see many evidences of order in the universe, but also many conditions that seem to be disorderly, as in the reckless whimsies of meteors, or the arrogant deviations of planetary orbits from the paths that our geometry would have required”. Would that all secularists were so thoughtful and understanding of Faith; so…tolerant.
The Reformation, I believe, will be a revelation to readers unacquainted with factual descriptions of life during those hard years. To hold views contrary to those in power was dangerous – deadly, even – while simply living past middle age was unheard of for many people, high and low. The discovery of America occurred during this time, and the clash of cultures that resulted from the same is something we are still living with in the present. Durant’s take on the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs and the Incas was ahead of its time (as was his dismissing of both culture’s blood-thirstiness), while his insights into how all of these peoples affected one another is a gem of scholarship. It is because of these many such insights that explain why Durant continues to hold readers’ attention throughout his (lengthy) books.
If you are interested in overall history, or merely interested in this particular era, then you cannot go wrong with The Reformation. Covering the period of time which changed Europe and the world from what was to closer to what we know now, Durant’s engaging style brings home fact after fact in a very readable format and text; his work is almost novelesque in its approach, and as I read one volume of The Story of Civilization after another it became obvious to me why this inclusive work of history has remained so popular for so long. There are many smaller works covering the Reformation, some very good ones also, but this one covers in in more depth than any I am familiar with and is much more readable than most. Like the rest of his work, this volume is well researched and like the rest of this particular series, can be read alone.
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