I have read several of the titles in Greenhaven Press's "Turning Points in World History" series and this one - "The Reformation" - is an excellent example of the potential of this series being properly and completely fulfilled. The series is intended to be a broad, but relatively complete overview of each subject. Structured as individual chapters, each with a number (3 - 6) of individual essays by various authors, then followed by an excellent compilation of original texts taken from the period and a chronology of main events, this series is very well structured. In this book, the reformation is broken down into five chapters that delve into 1) the origins of the reformation, 2) the spread of pretestantism, 3) cultural and social context, 4) Catholic Reformation and counter-reformation, and 5) The legacy. With the composition of each chapter as a sequence of relatively short essays, there are always the risks that 1) any given essay may be too terse to fully develop its subject (almost all are taken from longer works, pared down for the books of this series), 2) there may be too much overlap between essays, or 3) the ordering of essays may not be an optimal approach to the subject. However, in this particular volume, the reformation is very well introduced and each essay stands on its own as a very clear and concise introduction to one aspect of the overall subject matter. This book is clearly an excellent introduction and has helped mold my interest in this subject so that I am delving more deeply into various aspects of this history.
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