PositiveThe Washington Post...a meticulously researched and detailed account of Luther’s life and times. This is not a self-consciously psychological study — indeed, he has some fun with historians who put Luther in the psychiatrist’s chair — but it is nevertheless a very human portrait. Metaxas takes us through all the twists and turns of this almost impossibly dramatic life: the bold defiance of hierarchy, the gradual repudiation of the church that had made him … Metaxas is a scrupulous chronicler with an eye for a good story. The result is full, instructive and pacey, but unusually discursive … Metaxas is not unusual in seeing in Luther’s bold defiance of the papacy the birth of modern society.
Lyndal Roper
PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewDeeply researched over a period of more than 10 years, this biography offers a fresh and deeply illuminating study of the man who somewhat reluctantly divided a continent. What emerges is a work of impeccable scholarship and painstaking fairmindedness ... But her decision to stay with Luther in Wittenberg deprives us of any real explanation for why so many beyond Saxony took up his cause...This is a richly satisfying book, and offers some penetrating insights, but the focus on Luther’s inner life leaves us with an incomplete sense of how the man became a movement.
