Reviews for Renewing Christianity: A History of Church Reform from Day One to Vatican II

The average rating for Renewing Christianity: A History of Church Reform from Day One to Vatican II based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-04-15 00:00:00 Jeffrey Scott Great essays about this pivotal era from a great scholar. The first essay in the book, "Religion, the Reformation, and Social Change," is one of my favorite pieces of historical writing of all time. Trevor-Roper takes Weber's thesis of a link between Protestantism and capitalism, and validates the correlation, but throws into doubt the causal link. He tests other hypotheses, and finally concludes that Weber had it more or less upside down and backward. I won't spoil the ending by restating Trevor-Roper's conclusion... But even talk of "spoiling the ending" gives some indication of what great writing it is. Other essays in the collection are similarly brilliant.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-03-20 00:00:00 Matthew Barton Are we headed for a mid-21st century crisis? A Second Civil War? Re-reading Trevor-Roper's essays in 2019 has me greatly concerned about the near future for the United States. There are many eerie parallels between the situation in the early 17th century and what we have been experiencing in the early 21st.