5 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
British historian at Durham who wrote Protestants: The Faith That Made the Modern World and Unbelievers — arguing that Protestantism's inner dynamics (the individualism, the doubt, the anguish) generated the modern secular world through its own self-dissolution.
Cuban-American historian at Yale — one of the Pedro Pan children who escaped Cuba without his parents in 1962 — author of Waiting for Snow in Havana (National Book Award, 2003) and A Very Brief History of Eternity — specialist in the Reformation and early modern Catholic history.
King of England who broke with Rome to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon — founding the Church of England — and who had six wives, executed two of them, and whose political and religious decisions fundamentally shaped England's religious and constitutional identity.
French Protestant reformer who built Geneva into the most rigorous Reformation city-state and developed Calvinist theology — particularly the doctrine of double predestination (some are elected to salvation, others to damnation regardless of their actions) — whose influence shaped Puritanism, the Dutch Republic, Scotland, and the American colonial character.
German Augustinian friar who initiated the Protestant Reformation by nailing the 95 Theses to the Wittenberg church door — developing the doctrines of justification by faith alone and the priesthood of all believers — and whose German Bible translation standardized the German language and made Scripture accessible to ordinary readers.