A progressive examine Martin Luther, the Reformation, and the delivery of publishing, at the eve of the Reformation’s five hundredth anniversary
 
whilst Martin Luther published his “theses” at the door of the Wittenberg church in 1517, protesting corrupt practices, he used to be almost unknown. inside of months, his principles unfold throughout Germany, then all of Europe; inside years, their writer used to be not only recognized, yet notorious, answerable for catalyzing the violent wave of spiritual reform that may grow to be often called the Protestant Reformation and engulfing Europe in many years of bloody war.
 
Luther got here of age with the printing press, and the trail to glory of neither one was once noticeable to the informal observer of the time. Printing was once, and is, a dicy business—the questions have been easy methods to understand how a lot to print and the way to get there earlier than the contest. Pettegree illustrates Luther's nice presents no longer easily as a theologian, yet as a communicator, certainly, because the world's first mass-media determine, its first brand. He famous in printing the ability of pamphlets, written within the colloquial German of daily humans, to win the conflict of ideas.
 
yet that wasn't enough—not simply phrases, however the medium itself used to be the message. Fatefully, Luther had a companion within the type of artist and businessman Lucas Cranach, who including Wittenberg’s printers created the certain glance of Luther's pamphlets. jointly, Luther and Cranach created a product that unfold like wildfire—it used to be either exceedingly winning and generally imitated. quickly Germany was once beaten by way of a snow fall of pamphlets, with Wittenberg at its middle; the Reformation itself could blaze on for greater than 100 years.
 
Publishing earlier than the Reformation’s five hundredth anniversary, Brand Luther fuses the historical past of faith, of printing, and of capitalism—the literal industry of ideas—into one spell binding tale, revolutionizing our figuring out of 1 of the pivotal figures and eras in human history.

From the Hardcover edition.