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It took me about a year to read this. In fairness, it was not entirely or even mostly the book's fault. It turns out that 427 of tiny print on a subject on which you know almost nothing, plus 110 pages of endnotes, is not something that goes well with being a bit under the weather. When I returned to the last 250 pages without a sinus infection I romped through it. Well, up to a point.
Luther is a good book. It won the Wolfson History Prize, it was multiple 'Book(s) of the Year'. It's well written and despite the above, very readable. It's no hagiography, and doesn't flinch from the less savory sides of Luther's character, the anti-semitism, the 'if you're not with me you're against me' tendencies, the fact that he was very obviously a man who could dish it out, but not take it. I came away from it impressed with him in a way - you don't create that kind of change without being someone with some impressive qualities, and he was undoubtedly intelligent, courageous, and highly creative - while not liking him as a person.
As for the book, it's a good biography of Luther, probably, but not a good introduction to him and to the Reformation more broadly. Unfortunately, as someone who knows sod all about the Reformation, I was reading it for the latter. The first chapter doesn't even give his date of birth; I looked it up on Wikipedia, though I might have worked it out approximately from the first page of the second chapter, which informs me he was 14 in 1497. But would a date, or a timeline have been so bad? There is little by way of overview as to what else is happening outside the issues being focused on. Not really up on the German princely states? This may not be the book for you. I was reading this because my schooling basically included no pre-1800 continental European history* and I ended up feeling like someone from Russia reading an academic biog of Henry VIII while knowing nothing about him or the Tudor period at all except he got married a few times.
I don't think that all books should be equally accessible to the general reader, and Luther seems an impressive scholarly achievement. My beef, such as it is, is not really with Roper** so much as the presentation as, to quote Hillary Mantel, "a smart, accessible authoritative biography". It's certainly the first and third, but it isn't the second. If your school history included the Reformation, or you know a reasonable amount through cultural history and you want to know more, this could very well be the book for you. If it didn't, pick up a Very Short Introduction first.
*Literally everything I know about pre-Revolutionary France I have learned from fiction, not least The Three Muskehounds.
**Though seriously, can't you manage to mention he was born in 1483 near the start? I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation of a biography. I was on a train with no WiFi!
Luther is a good book. It won the Wolfson History Prize, it was multiple 'Book(s) of the Year'. It's well written and despite the above, very readable. It's no hagiography, and doesn't flinch from the less savory sides of Luther's character, the anti-semitism, the 'if you're not with me you're against me' tendencies, the fact that he was very obviously a man who could dish it out, but not take it. I came away from it impressed with him in a way - you don't create that kind of change without being someone with some impressive qualities, and he was undoubtedly intelligent, courageous, and highly creative - while not liking him as a person.
As for the book, it's a good biography of Luther, probably, but not a good introduction to him and to the Reformation more broadly. Unfortunately, as someone who knows sod all about the Reformation, I was reading it for the latter. The first chapter doesn't even give his date of birth; I looked it up on Wikipedia, though I might have worked it out approximately from the first page of the second chapter, which informs me he was 14 in 1497. But would a date, or a timeline have been so bad? There is little by way of overview as to what else is happening outside the issues being focused on. Not really up on the German princely states? This may not be the book for you. I was reading this because my schooling basically included no pre-1800 continental European history* and I ended up feeling like someone from Russia reading an academic biog of Henry VIII while knowing nothing about him or the Tudor period at all except he got married a few times.
I don't think that all books should be equally accessible to the general reader, and Luther seems an impressive scholarly achievement. My beef, such as it is, is not really with Roper** so much as the presentation as, to quote Hillary Mantel, "a smart, accessible authoritative biography". It's certainly the first and third, but it isn't the second. If your school history included the Reformation, or you know a reasonable amount through cultural history and you want to know more, this could very well be the book for you. If it didn't, pick up a Very Short Introduction first.
*Literally everything I know about pre-Revolutionary France I have learned from fiction, not least The Three Muskehounds.
**Though seriously, can't you manage to mention he was born in 1483 near the start? I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation of a biography. I was on a train with no WiFi!