What I've been reading Thursday. Luther: Renegade and Prophet, Lyndal Roper

[nineveh_uk]

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!

Comments

[antisoppist]

Little Sister used the Three Muskehounds to help me revise for my History A-level. I did British and European 1485-1660 (although for British we stopped in 1649) so it is probably designed for readers who are me except I read my mother's copy of Here I Stand at the time and I think that's still enough Luther biography for the time being.

I don't think Hilary Mantel is the right person to judge whether anything about the sixteenth century is accessible. She will be differently calibrated.

[alithea]

Yes, I've yet to make it more than a few chapters into Wolf Hall!

I didn't study anything earlier than 1860-ish in History at high school and no European history prior to the 20th century at all. The Three Muskehounds was excellent though :)

[nineveh_uk]

I enjoyed Wolf Hall a lot, but bounced off Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety.

I just wish that GCSE and A-Level had been more joined up. I had to study the sodding Corn Laws twice! GCSE did involve History of Medicine, though, which I loved.

[alithea]

I had to study far too much of 20th Century European dictators :( But at least I got to do some interesting late 19th Century and pre-WWI British political history at A level.

[white_hart]

I wish I'd done that one for A-level but we had a choice of two and because I'd done Tudors and Stuarts for GCSE I picked Great Dictatorships of the 20th Century* instead.

I am very wary of reading academic books as I suspect I will find them incredibly hard going after not doing anything academic for such a long time.

*not its official title

[azdak]

Wasn't it called "Dictators in Europe" or something like that? I did it and it was exclusively Hitler and Mussolini, although since we'd done Mao for O-level I didn't feel particularly short-changed.

[white_hart]

We did Franco and the rise of Stalin (to c. 1935, I think, but not beyond that as that module went to 1980 and as it was only 1990-92 that history was still being written) as well, but it was indeed very Eurocentric.

[nineveh_uk]

One Luther biography per lifetime is probably enough for the average person.

The Three Muskehounds must have educated more people about that period of French history than any other recent text!

[tree_and_leaf]

It's a pity it's not as accessible as it's presented, but I think I might pick up a copy - it sounds like I'd enjoy it, and I know enough of the history not to get lost.

[nineveh_uk]

I imagine you could really enjoy it, and would certainly be way above the background knowledge required on all fronts! It's stylistically good, and Roper does explain her arguments well.