This year's marking of the five hundredth anniversary of the Reformation has focused almost exclusively on one figure, a man whose name and legend towers above his contemporaries. Martin Luther was a relatively unknown university professor entering his middle years when his protest against the sale of indulgences became the scandal of Europe. When in 1517 his Ninety-Five Theses were posted on the door of the Castle church in Wittenberg, there were few clues of the torrent to follow. Wittenberg was a backwater in electoral Saxony, a town of approximately two thousand inhabitants with little to recommend it apart from the court of Luther's patron, Frederick the Wise. The university, founded by the elector in 1502, was of modest reputation and in one publication of the period, a form of late medieval “Rate My Professor,” Luther, who lectured on the Bible, was not even listed in the top hundred academics of the region.

It is Wittenberg's provincialism, however, that provides the drama for Andrew Pettegree's compelling and engrossing account of the great German reformer and his world. Luther's meteoric rise to celebrity transformed a sleepy nowhere into a center of the German printing world. Pettegree, one of the leading historians of print culture, tells us in this beautifully crafted book how printing created Martin Luther and the Reformation, an event he rightly regards as having changed the course of Western culture. The twist in the tale, however, lies in the fact that Luther was a canny innovator who understood well the potential and value of the printing press. If Luther the renowned reformer was possible because of the press, he returned the favor.

The magnitude of change is evident from a few arresting facts. In the German lands of the Holy Roman Empire two-thirds of the books printed came from urban centers such as Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Cologne, cities with populations of more than sixty thousand inhabitants. Wittenberg had no place in this company, yet in the years 1517 to 1525, Frederick the Wise's small city defied geography and economics to become a center of the book trade. Why? The reason, as Pettegree argues, was no less than Martin Luther. In his German writing, Luther crafted texts that were relatively short, were well suited to the pamphlet format, and could be produced at speed. A good day's work could see a press bring forth five hundred copies of a Luther tract, relatively cheaply. The reformer was not, however, limited to print; he was a charismatic master communicator whose sermons transfixed laymen and women.

Luther adapted his writing to the controversies in which he found himself embroiled. Having begun with a set of theses for academic debate, Luther moved the discussion into the vernacular, which his opponents failed to embrace, providing the reformer with an enormous public relations advantage. Pettegree persuasively argues that the symbiotic relationship between Luther and the press cannot be reduced to material or institutional interpretations. At the heart of Luther's transformation of Wittenberg and of the print world was his own intellectual and spiritual evolution: it was his development as a religious leader with a unique talent for expressing complex theological ideas in the words of the people. The Wittenberg reformer was a brilliant communicator, who in the years 1518 and 1519 became Europe's most published author, and whose image, thanks to the woodcuts of Lucas Cranach, made his visage familiar to a vast public.

Pettegree employs the Luther story to throw light on the economics of early printing, demonstrating both their complexity of supply and demand and their precariousness as financial ruin loomed ominously. We are not allowed to forget that printers in the early years of the Reformation pursued profits and were by no means religious charities. Luther, with his growing notoriety, was extremely good for business, and he knew it. In the numerous prefaces he wrote for the works of other authors, Luther was hardly reticent about advertising the achievements of the printers of Wittenberg. In the city he was constantly involved in the daily work of printing his works, and he played a key role in drawing major printers to Wittenberg. The reformer of Brand Luther intervened at every stage of production and was deeply concerned about the frequent pirating of his works. Luther worked hard for his printers and made them wealthy, but he demanded much in return. In dealing with competing printing houses Luther was able to negotiate with confidence and authority. He possessed an enhanced aesthetic, insisting, as John Calvin later did, that his books be of the highest quality. In this pursuit of excellence, the reformer was greatly aided by the amazing Cranach, who created extraordinary title pages that elegantly paired the names Martin Luther and Wittenberg.

Pettegree writes with confidence, an easy mastery of his subject, and an eye for apposite anecdotes to convey how Luther effected a profound change in the public reading conscience during the early Reformation. Luther, however, never appears in isolation. Like other leaders of revolutionary movements, Luther relied heavily on his circle of friends, colleagues, and ever-expanding circles of supporters. In addition to his writing, Luther spent much of his time preaching and providing pastoral care. We glimpse a man of many passions, not least choleric. As Pettegree wryly remarks, Luther was not an easy friend. To his opponents he was worse than difficult, in his treatment of the Jews and of his doctrinal opponents Luther responded with such violent intemperance that his closest supporters averted their eyes.

This is not a book about Luther's doctrines, and there is little to be found on law and gospel or the theology of the cross. Intended for a broader readership, Brand Luther tells a story both familiar and fresh. The Luther who emerges from the book is a charismatic prophet, a transforming leader, yet a flawed hero. He was a master of communication in an age of head-spinning change. The book follows Luther from his youth to the man who died a peaceful death despite the predictions of his detractors, who assumed his soul would be dragged by demons to hell. What Brand Luther delivers is a pacey, insightful, and eminently readable story of a revolution.