Enacting the Reformation in Germany

Enacting the Reformation in Germany brings together sixteen essays and articles written over a thirty-year period by a historian who has made it his special scholarly concern to trace and analyze the social consequences of the German Reformation's salient ideas and positions. The picture Strauss draws of a country and a society struggling to understand and incorporate the deep structural and mental changes brought on by Martin Luther's revolt against Rome has the sharpness and contrast of a visual image.

Contents: Provisional Contents: Preface; The course of German history: the Lutheran interpretation; The image of Germany in the 16th century; The production of Johann Stumpf's description of the Swiss Confederation; Protestant dogma and city government: the case of Nuremberg; The religious policies of Dukes Wilhelm IV and Ludwig X of Bavaria in the first decade of the Protestant era; Luther as Barabbas; The state of pedagogical theory c. 1530: what Protestant reformers knew about education; The social function of schools in the Lutheran Reformation in Germany; Liberal or illiberal arts?; Lutheranism and literacy: a reassessment; Success and failure in the German Reformation; The Reformation and its public in an age of orthodoxy; How to read a Volksbuch: the Faust book of 1587; Three kinds of Christian freedom: law, liberty, and license in the German Reformation; The dilemma of popular history; The idea of order in the German Reformation; Index.