The Age of the Reformation

Religious change shares the stage with printing, commerce and political power in Preserved Smith's history of the Reformation. His preface sets out an effort to connect the movement with the economic and intellectual changes of the sixteenth century. The contents follow Luther in Germany, Zwingli and Calvin in Switzerland, and developments in France, the Netherlands, England and Scotland. They also trace the older church, humanist learning and the growth of new forms of religious practice.

Smith pays close attention to the means by which ideas reach a wider public. In his discussion of censorship, he considers restrictions on books, the alteration of earlier writings and the influence of press laws on popular belief. He then places the Reformation alongside the Renaissance and European expansion. Readers seeking a broad historical account can follow his connections between disputes over faith and changes in government, education and public opinion.