In preparation for the 2017 ‘Reformation jubilee’, and in a conscious attempt to widen the focus from Martin Luther, Goertz here offers a revised edition of his biography of the radical Reformer Thomas Müntzer, which first appeared in German in 1989, the quincentenary of Müntzer's birth, and in English translation in 1993. Since 1990 Müntzer scholarship has yielded the first two volumes of a critical edition of Müntzer's writings, and additional research into the stages of Müntzer's life and theological development, his theological priorities and his relationship to Wittenberg. Goertz's much expanded biography (the 215 pages of the first edition have here become 352) integrates these new insights into his narrative, although it shows less engagement with wider Reformation scholarship, and his conclusions remain largely unchanged.

The biography opens with a chapter setting the scene: Müntzer was born, in Goertz's reading, into a time of radical change, a ‘Wende der Zeit’ (a term which in German resonates with the Wende of November 1989 which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and eventually to the reunification of Germany, events which were still in the future when Goertz published the first edition of the biography). Goertz focuses on the social tensions which characterised this period, which everywhere formed the context of the Reformation, although this is not always made explicit in Reformation scholarship. He proceeds chronologically, tracing Münzter's life from its beginnings (about which little is known: that he was born in Stolberg seems likely, possibly in 1489, but equally possibly not), his studies in Leipzig, Wittenberg and perhaps Erfurt, his ministry in Braunschweig, Jüterborg, Zwickau, Prague, Nordhausen, Glaucha and Mühlhausen, his theological differences with Luther, his support of the peasants’ (or better farmers’) war, and his arrest, trial and execution in 1525. A final chapter considers Müntzer's legacy. A first appendix presents ‘distorted images’ of Müntzer (an updated version of the opening historiographical chapter in the first edition) and ‘Thomas Müntzer and theology today’, which explores possible applications of Müntzer's theology, particularly in ecumenical dialogue, whilst warning against the dangers of translating Müntzer's ideas into such a very different context. A second appendix provides a map of the places where Müntzer was active and a chronological table placing his life in the context of the wider Reformation and political events. Throughout, Goertz is clear about the limited knowledge which can be generated by the scanty sources which witness to Müntzer's life, and warns against drawing over-hasty conclusions, emphasising that some of his own narrative is probable rather than proven. In all of this, Goertz seeks to counter historiographical trends that have seen in Müntzer either the radical proto-Marxist revolutionary or a misguided mystical theologian, an approach which in post re-unification (and perhaps more importantly post-Marxist) scholarship has now largely been accepted. For Goertz, Müntzer's revolutionary commitment to the cause of the peasants and farmers can only be properly understood as arising from his mystical apocalyptic theology.

Müntzer was, in Goertz's reading, ‘mystic, apocalyptic, revolutionary’, a Reformer deeply inspired both by apocalyptic theology and the theology of the German mystics, aware of Hussite and Utraquist developments in Bohemia, an anti-clerical cleric, who wanted to make faith accessible to all people and thereby to promote a society rooted in love of neighbour. Goertz's focus on anti-clericalism seems somewhat outdated; recent historiography of the Reformation has questioned whether it was of such central significance. This is an example of the way in which Goertz's revised biography sometimes shows its age. Taken overall, however, this biography offers a useful corrective to accounts of the Reformation which focus exclusively on the magisterial Reformers, and shows a fractured, fragmented society into which Müntzer was able to speak his message of radical change. Müntzer scholars will find here a useful survey of recent Müntzer scholarship and will benefit from the expanded references. However, those who own the first edition probably need not invest in the second. It is the detail that is different in Goertz's revised edition, not the overall picture.