The Reformation [Modern Library Chronicles]

By: Patrick Collinson

Narrated by: John McDonough

Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

Renowned scholar Patrick Collinson is Regius Professor of Modern History, Emeritus, Cambridge. He states, "The Reformation (and Counter Reformation) was the blast furnace in which the modern state was forged." This engaging work offers a concise overview of the ecumenical revolution of the late medieval and Renaissance periods. Narrator John McDonough's presentation of the spiritual and the secular elements that led to religious reform will captivate listeners.

©2004 Patrick Collinson (P)2004 Recorded Books, LLC

Good, but regarding its "Audible Kids" claim...

The recording starts out with young children exclaiming "This is Audible Kids!". That's kind of funny. It's probably less kid-friendly than most books, with uncommon words and some use of the s-word.

Not for beginners

This is not a book for someone who knows nothing about the Reformation to begin with--the theological distinctions between Luther and Calvin, let alone Zwingli and Melanchthon, are hard for a non-Protestant to understand, and the relative brevity of the work doesn't give him time to really hash it out (to be fair, the issues that separated these guys are sometimes hard to appreciate, even when they're understood). However, it is very well-written, and since the author is one of the best-known scholars on the subject it is certainly reliable. It is an excellent overview of a complicated subject. In addition, the narrator is excellent.

Probably the best short history

Very good, and even interesting to people with no other interest in the period. I find myself stopping every so often to make notes on my dictaphone.

This is a very up-to-date history, but also (relatively) brief and accessible, by one of the foremost experts on the period.

Mid-brow, entertaining history

Any additional comments?

This book was detailed enough to teach me something that I didn't already know, but light enough for my 21st century attention span. The listener needn't worry about the author covering the reformation with a sectarian bias. The only weakness I can gripe about is that the author organizes the book to discuss different Reformation-related trends that spanned Europe. Of course, the Reformation developed differently in different countries. Those differences were addressed in detail, but, since chapters are not organized geographically, I found it difficult to keep track of which country's Reformation he was talking about. The author jumps from locality to locality in the same paragraph. Admittedly, I probably would have heard the reference to a different example in a different country if my attention were fully focused on the reading. But, hey, this is an audio-book, which means that I'm always doing something else while the narrator has a maximum of 1/2 my attention.

Not bad....

Listen to Diarmaid MacCulloch's after this one...

Same title, but it's 24+ hrs


🤔📚🤔

·Yurugu: An Afrikan-Centered Critique Of European Cultural Thought And Behavior - Marimba Ani

·There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America - Alex Kotlowitz

.The Blackman's Guide to Understanding the Blackwoman - Shahrazad Ali

.Sex, Time, and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution - Leonard Shlain

.The Myth of Male Power: Why Men are the disposable sex - Warren Farrell, Ph.D

.The Rational Male - Rollo Tomassi

·The Wretched Of The Earth - Frantz Fanon

·Dark Light Consciousness: Melanin, Serpent Power, and the Luminous Matrix of Reality by Edward Bynum

·Blacked Out Through Whitewash: Exposing the Quantum Deception/Rediscovering and Recovering Suppressed Melanated by Suzar

·Christopher Columbus & the Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery & the Rise of European Capitalism by John Henrik Clarke

·They came before Columbus: The African Presence In Ancient America by Ivan Van Sertima

·Stolen Legacy: The Egyptian Origins of Western Philosophy by George G M James

·How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney

·The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism Within US Slave Culture by Vincent Woodard

·Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America by Cameron McWhirter

·Germany's black holocaust, 1890-1945 by Firpo W. Carr

·Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saini

·The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

·The Willie Lynch Letter and the Making of a Slave by Willie Lynch

·Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X Kendi

·White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg

·The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood by Tommy Curry

·They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie Jones-Rogers

·The Destruction of Black Civilization : Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D. by Chancellor Williams

·The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist

·Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon

·The Accident of Color: A Story of Race in Reconstruction by Daniel Brook

·Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy by David Zucchino

·African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean
By Herbert S. Klein, Ben Vinson III

·The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

·John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights by David S. Reynolds

·Sex and Racism in America by Calvin C Hernton

· The Blackwoman's Guide to Understanding the Blackman - Shahrazad Ali

A spinning compass

As I listened to this book I felt like I was sitting on the needle of a compass that had no sense of true north. Rather the author seems to hold a magnet and spins the reader in all sorts of directions.

The Protestant Reformation is a relatively well-defined period in the history of western Christianity. Yet the book begins with a meandering discussion of the eastern church. Then after some mention of the key place of Martin Luther, he discusses how the Protestant Reformation is part of a wider experience of renewal in a variety of religions.

I purchased this book to gain a better understanding of the events and theological developments of the Protestant Reformation. This book is a great disappointment.

boring

much too academic. i had trouble paying attention and wished i hadn't purchased this.