This incredibly rich, complex, nuanced, and thought-provoking work is part of the “Contesting the Past” series, whose volumes identify contentious and divisive events in history—such as the Reformation of the sixteenth century—and analyze and comment upon the contradictory and often exclusive theories and findings of specialists in the given area. The goal of the works in this series, and Dixon's contribution certainly succeeds in this regard, is to reveal the dialectic of historiography, not only by showing how, and explaining why, newer theories or paradigms develop in response to the perceived inadequacies of older ones, but also to demonstrate how a widely accepted (albeit temporary) resolution of one particular interpretive problem leads to a host of hitherto unasked questions and unforeseen concerns. For readers of this journal whose primary interests lie outside the Reformation, Dixon is a highly regarded and prolific scholar whose books and articles over the past twenty years have themselves done much to inform our understanding of various aspects of early-modern religious history, and so he was an ideal choice to author a book for this series.

As Dixon notes in his introduction, most scholarship on the Reformation is, for a variety of explicable reasons, either bifurcated along national and linguistic lines (e .g., studies of the Reformation in Germany or in England), or according to subfield (e. g., women's history of the Reformation or urban histories of the Reformation), and regretfully, the dialogue between scholars in these discrete communities has been fairly narrow and remains underdeveloped. Differing methodological perspectives also contribute to this fragmentation; church historians who focus on abstruse components of the reformers' theologies might have little involvement with anthropologically grounded historians of popular culture who examine the Reformation's impact on communal drinking rituals. Much of the value of this volume stems, therefore, from Dixon's ability to reveal meaningful commonalities and connections between important works normally isolated in academic niches. By contrasting books not usually considered in tandem, by deliberating crossing interdisciplinary boundaries, and by establishing transnational comparisons wherever possible, Dixon creates a rather fruitful dialogue, one that will certainly challenge the preconceptions of even the most well-read scholars of the Reformation. Within each chapter, Dixon's explication of a discrete topic may be read separately, but an implicit dialogue also exists between all of the topics within any given chapter, thus providing a means to inform, more broadly, our understanding of each issue. And before launching his historiographical discussions, Dixon usually provides a succinct social, political, and religious background that serves to contextualize the issues at stake, justify the questions historians ask, and consider the evidentiary problems at play. For these reasons, and because it is so lucidly written, this text may be profitably read, at differing levels, both by the undergraduate being introduced to general trends and concerns in Reformation research or by the advanced specialist.

Dixon organizes this text by theme, not chronology, most likely because such a structure facilitates more inventive historiographical contrasts. The first section following the introduction, “Defining the Reformation,” examines late-medieval understandings of Reformatio, addresses biases, inadvertent or deliberate, inherent to nomenclature (e.g., Counter-Reformation, Radical Reformation), analyzes the contested origins of the Reformation, and identifies differences within national traditions, and, throughout these discussions, he outlines areas for profitable dialogue among works based on different premises. The focus of the next section, “Religious Life,” is to examine questions raised by probing the relationship between Catholic and Protestant belief. Dixon covers the inheritance of late-medieval Christianity on its Reformation-era alterations, analyzes methods by which to assess the role of the major reformers as well as clergymen of regional importance, focuses on key aspects of Reformation theology, such as ecclesiology and predestination, and evaluates the impact on the Reformation of intellectual systems such as nominalism or by intellectual movements such as humanism.

Under the heading “The Anatomy of Reform” Dixon introduces topics such as the Reformation as a media event and the relationship between print culture and confessional propaganda, addresses reasons for conversion to Protestantism, and interrogates the perceived links between various social categories and the appeal of Protestantism. In this section Dixon also considers how scholars of Anabaptism or of the Radical Reformation treat these topics, thereby establishing suggestive comparisons with work in the Lutheran, Reformed, and English contexts. The following chapter, “Reformation Politics,” explores historians' treatments of the Reformation as a “lived experience” on the parish level, one involving complex sets of negotiation, accommodation, and resistance to, or appropriation of, aspects of the new confessions. This chapter also focuses on the Reformation in relation to urban culture; in relation to communes; in regard to early-modern state formation; and as an event that contributed to the development of western political theory, for example, Huguenot resistance theory.

The penultimate chapter, “The Social Dynamics,” begins with a discussion of a women's and gender history of the Reformation, including a disappointingly brief reference to witchcraft. That conversation flows seamlessly into sections in which Dixon examines current research on martyrdom, Puritanism, iconoclasm, and tolerance. “Confessional Cultures,” the final chapter, discusses debates regarding the quality of Protestant clergymen; analyses of church services and Protestant ritual, examinations of the social and political implications of Protestant theology, and considerations of social and ecclesiological disciplining. Dixon also provides an overview of the important and controversial paradigm, confessionalization. He concludes this highly recommended book by reflecting on the relationship between Protestantism and modernity, exploring facets of contemporary western culture such as individualism, capitalism, “modern” science, and secularization to determine the legacy of the Reformation.

A short appendix discusses the debate as to whether Luther actually posted the 95 Theses, and serves as an apt synecdoche for the volume. The bibliography alone makes this book a valuable resource; there are more than fifty pages of endnotes and recommendations for further reading.