Bruce Gordon has written an excellent biography of the Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli. He rightly notes that Zwingli has long been overshadowed by both Martin Luther and John Calvin; scholars have depicted the reformer of Zurich as deriving his ideas from the former and merely being the ‘warm-up act’ for the latter. The author also cannot accept modern liberal Protestants’ attempts to paint the Swiss reformer as a proto-liberal. Based on thorough research of published sources, most notably the reformer's correspondence, this brilliant study stresses, as the title suggests, Zwingli's consistent desire to unite his religious vision with political and military power; his roles of preacher and politician were inextricably linked.

Gordon deftly discusses Zwingli's youth and education. The son of prosperous peasants, Zwingli was sent to study in Basel at the age of ten and received an excellent humanist education. After earning a Master of Arts from the University of Basel, he became a priest in 1506 at the age of twenty-two. Gordon repeatedly addresses the influence that Erasmus had on Zwingli. Though the two men actually met only once, the young Swiss priest had the highest respect for the Dutch humanist who, more than Luther, nurtured in Zwingli the belief that Scripture was the sole source of religious truth. The two men corresponded for several years until Erasmus terminated all communication in 1524.

The author quite correctly stresses the importance of Zwingli's Swiss heritage. Proud of his roots, Zwingli came to view the Swiss, like the ancient Israelites, as God's chosen people, and bemoaned the fact that so many of his compatriots were losing their lives as mercenaries employed by the pope, the French king or the German emperor. Arriving in Zurich in 1519, the preacher was profoundly affected by nearly dying of the plague that same year. Gordon does a good job of discussing some key early signs of Zwingli's rebellion against Rome, including his secret marriage, his questioning of the veneration of saints and his rejection of fasting (aptly seen in his presence at the famous sausage-eating incident during Lent).

Gordon persuasively portrays the reformer as highly confrontational and controversial. Catholics in neighbouring Swiss cantons were appalled at the stripping of Zurich's churches, starting in the summer of 1524, of all images, statues and altars – fittingly described as the most severe destruction of church interiors in the history of European Christianity, apart from the pillaging perpetrated by Vikings. The author expertly discusses Zwingli's theological and personal conflicts with contemporaries, be they Catholics, Lutherans or Anabaptists. The reformer insisted that baptism was a ‘convenantal sign’ that marks the beginning of one's faith but does not itself strengthen, let alone bestow, faith. He also accused Anabaptists of reading the Scripture too literally when they noted that there are no biblical examples of infant baptisms; pushed to its logical conclusion, this argument would mean, Zwingli averred, that women should be denied communion since there were no females present at the Last Supper.

Gordon also adroitly examines Zwingli's notorious disagreement with Luther on the meaning of communion or the Supper. While Luther insisted on the physical presence of Christ in the sacrament, Zwingli described the Supper as a ‘memorial’ with no physical presence whatsoever. Quite interestingly, in the liturgy that he wrote for the first celebration of the Supper on Maundy Thursday 1525, Zwingli never referred to it as a sacrament, labelling it rather a ‘remembrance’ and ‘thanksgiving’ (though his ‘Exposition of Faith’, published posthumously, certainly suggests a spiritual presence when partaking of the Supper). Gordon demonstrates how deep the animosity was between Zwingli and Luther, with the latter once declaring that the former was ‘seven times worse than when he was a papist’ (p. 176); upon learning of his death, Luther famously proclaimed that the Swiss was damned. Referring to the reformers’ failure to unite at the Marburg Colloquy, Gordon convincingly argues that their disagreements went well beyond the alleged physical presence of Christ in the sacrament; while the Saxon theologian believed that God was hidden and beyond human discernment, the Swiss stressed God's benevolence and was optimistic that people can be assured of God's providence.

Social discipline has long been associated with Reformed Protestantism but more so with Calvin's Geneva rather than with Zwingli's Zurich. Be that as it may, already in 1526 the city council of Zurich called for the creation of a morals court, fifteen years before the establishment of Geneva's Consistory, the most famous and influential of Reformed disciplinary institutions. A key difference, though, was that Zwingli insisted that discipline be firmly in the hands of the magistrates alone. It is worth noting that Zurich was considerably stricter than Geneva on the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy – on Sundays, work and play were forbidden and the taverns were closed in Zurich, whereas in Geneva such prohibitions applied only during the times of the church services.

Admirers of Zwingli may be dismayed at how bellicose he was. The execution in 1529 of a Protestant preacher in the Catholic canton of Schwyz incited the reformer to preach incendiary sermons calling for military action, which led to the indecisive First Kappel War. Confident that the godly would inevitably be victorious, Zwingli continued his aggressive calls for battle which contributed to the outbreak in 1531 of the Second Kappel War, in which Zurich suffered a humiliating defeat and the reformer was killed, seriously tarnishing his legacy.

One of the most interesting aspects of this book is the thoughtful examination of changing views of the reformer through the centuries. For example, while early nineteenth-century thinkers admired Zwingli as a moderate and rational humanist, in the following century Karl Barth criticised him for putting too much emphasis on reason. Rightly concluding that Zwingli was neither ‘hero nor martyr’ but rather an ‘embattled prophet’, the author has written a highly engaging, cogently argued analysis of the reformer's life and legacy.