In these two volumes, Fritz Büsser, former head of Zürich's Institute für schweizerische Reformationsgeschichte and a lifelong Bullinger scholar, presents the first full biography of the Zürich reformer written since the nineteenth century. Büsser's work joins that of Peter Opitz, Andreas Mühling, Bruce Gordon and Emidio Campi, all of whom have recently published books on Bullinger. It also follows close on the heels of an international scholarly conference held in Zürich in 2004, the five-hundredth anniversary of the reformer's birth. The proceedings from that conference have just been published under the same title as Büsser's biography, but translated into English, as Heinrich Bullinger: life – thought– and influence (Zürich 2007). Like these other publications, Büsser presents a picture of a man who was much more than just Zwingli's successor in Zürich and an able church administrator. In fact, he was an influential theologian in his own right, and he played an equal, if not superior, role to Calvin as a leader of Reformed Protestantism in Europe until his death in 1575.

Other than this broad assertion that Bullinger deserves a place with Luther, Calvin and Zwingli as a major Protestant reformer and theologian, Büsser does not advance any real overarching argument in his biography. Instead, in the foreword to the first volume, he lists three basic ideas around which he focuses his portrait: Bullinger as a historian, as a patriarch of ecumenical Christianity, and as a patriarch of the Reformed Churches. Büsser's list would have been more accurate if he had added a fourth dimension: Bullinger as a patriarch of the city of Zürich, for some of the most fascinating material in the biography is that detailing Bullinger's day-to-day involvement in the religious and political affairs of Zürich itself.

Because Bullinger's life, work and influence is such a complex, rich topic, Büsser wisely eschews a traditional, chronological approach to his biography. Instead, he organises the two volumes into three ‘circles’: Zürich, the Swiss Confederation and Europe. Each of the two volumes has two main parts. The first part of volume i presents the ‘Grundlagen’ (‘roots’ or ‘foundation’), that is, Bullinger's youth, early career, marriage and family life. The second part then investigates the ‘first circle’, or Bullinger's work in Zürich. The first three chapters explore Bullinger's activities as the head of the church there. Topics include his working relationship with the secular government in Zürich, his role as the primary preacher in the city and his involvement in Zürich's budding theological academy, the ‘Schola Tigurina’. Büsser ends this part with two chapters on Bullinger's work as a biblical scholar, historian and theologian, examining several works that Büsser considers most important to Bullinger's influence in Zürich itself; these include, among others, his biblical commentaries and his famous collection of sermons, known as the Decades.

Volume ii analyses Bullinger's work and influence in the second and third circles. The organisation of part i, on the Swiss Confederation, is slightly puzzling. Chapters ii and v look at Bullinger's role as ‘patriarch of a reformed catholicity’ and as an ‘ecumenical patriarch’. These chapters fit naturally together, and it is strange that Büsser did not present them consecutively. Nevertheless, the argument made in them is an important one: that in his writings vis-à-vis the papacy, the Anabaptists and the eucharistic controversy with the Lutherans, Bullinger laid the foundation for the confessional identity of the Swiss Reformed Churches, while simultaneously emphasising basic beliefs shared by both the Swiss and the Lutherans and even, to a smaller extent, the Roman Catholics. Finally, Büsser analyses Bullinger's influence on the ‘third circle’. There are chapters on Bullinger's involvement in France, the ‘Anglo-Saxon world’ (by which Büsser really means England for there are only two or three paragraphs on Scotland and the American colonies), Germany and the Netherlands, and Eastern Europe. The main thrust of these chapters will already be familiar to readers aware of recent research: that through his voluminous correspondence and published writings, Bullinger played a significant role in expanding and supporting the spread of Reformed Protestantism throughout Europe.

As with any scholarly undertaking of this magnitude, Büsser's biography has both strengths and weaknesses. The story is deeply embedded in and supported by primary source material, but also relies heavily on the scholarship of others. This is valuable and useful when Büsser confirms or revises previous scholarly conclusions. For example, he joins Edward Dowey and Peter Opitz in arguing that the testamental unity of the covenant between God and man was an important theological concept for Bullinger, but not the organising principle of his thought. It is, perhaps, less valuable when Büsser ends up summarising work that others have presented in more detail, such as Opitz on the Decades or Mühling on Bullinger's correspondence outside Switzerland. Büsser's attention to detail also has advantages and disadvantages. A good and fascinating example is when he describes the connections Bullinger maintained with Zürich during the early years of Zwingli's Reformation. Even though Bullinger was working and living outside Zürich at this time, Büsser demonstrates that he was in no way peripheral to the events leading up to the Second Kappel War and Zwingli's death in 1531. On the other hand, he dwells longer than perhaps necessary on the careers of all the Zürich Bürgermeisters with whom Bullinger had contact. Finally, the bibliographic apparatus may frustrate some readers. Rather than extensive footnotes, Büsser provides a list of secondary literature used at the beginning of each chapter, but then, strangely, has a bibliography at the end that does not contain all the secondary literature cited in the chapters. Despite these minor flaws, however, Büsser's biography is a welcome and long-awaited addition to the field of Reformation studies, and will undoubtedly become a standard reference for future research.