The Reformation Towards a New History

This book recasts the story of the Reformation by bringing together two histories: the Encounter between Europe and the western hemisphere beginning in 1492; and the fragmentation of European Christendom in the sixteenth century. In so doing, it restores resonance to 'idolatry', 'cannibal', 'barbarian', even as it moves past such polemics to trace multiple understandings of divinity, matter and human nature. So many aspects of human life, from marriage and family through politics to ways of thinking about space and time, were called into question. Debates on human nature and conversion forged new understandings of religious identity. Debates on the relationship of humanity to the material world forged new understandings of image and ritual, new understandings of physics. By the end of the century, there was not one 'Christian religion', but many, and many understandings of the Christian in the world.

Introduction; Part I. Beginnings: 1. Christianity in 1500; 2. 'The New World'; 3. 'The World'; Part II. Fragmentation: 4. The word of God and the ordering of the world; 5. The ties that bind; 6. Boundaries; Part III. Religion Reconceived: 7. Christians; 8. Things and places; 9. Incarnation; Conclusion.

The Reformation and the encounter between Europe and the Western hemisphere have long been treated as separate events. Lee Palmer Wandel brings the two narratives together, casting a history of human difference, of multiple understandings of Christianity, each shaped by the encounter with unknown worlds.

Lee Palmer Wandel is a Professor of History, Religious Studies and Visual Culture at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is the author of Always Among Us: Images of the Poor in Zwingli's Zurich (1990), Voracious Idols and Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg, and Basel (1994) and The Eucharist in the Reformation: Incarnation and Liturgy (2006), all with Cambridge University Press. She also co-authored (with Robin Winks) Europe in a Wider World, 1350–1650 (2003) and co-edited (with Walter Melion) Early Modern Eyes (2009).