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A review by moreteamorecats
Reformations: The Early Modern World, 1450-1650 by Carlos M.N. Eire
3.0
Eire regularly teaches a course called "Reformation Europe", a term he defines and defends in that course's first lecture. It isn't "early modern Europe", for instance: You could teach a course with that title centered on economic history and never mention Luther at all. In the book that has come out of this teaching, Eire goes one step further. He wants to defend the Reformations as essential to early modernity and definitive for the modernity that follows, over against (especially) Marxian historiography.
A supple writer and decorated memoirist, Eire weaves this theoretical argument into a vast narrative. His preface admits that this is truly a multi-volume work. In truth, it might read better that way, emphasizing periods, modes, or results of the Reformations rather than implicitly attempting a monograph at quite this scale. As it stands, the sweep is so enormous that almost any non-specialist reader would learn a great deal from reading the whole thing, and the telling illuminated by sardonic humor and moral clarity.
In an early chapter, Eire tips his hand a bit when he expresses contempt for the humanist habit of classicizing last names (e.g. Schwarzerde -> Melanchthon). In effect, he accuses the humanists of thinking they are better than the world they grew up in, changing their names as a mark of their separation. This is not only a Protestant move, but it is predominantly Protestant. Let that be a keynote for Eire's moral emphasis: What he critiques, besides the obviously indefensible (e.g. the conquistadors), is usually what he takes to be elite self-regard. It is an odd note in what is largely an intellectual history, and often makes for sour reading.
A supple writer and decorated memoirist, Eire weaves this theoretical argument into a vast narrative. His preface admits that this is truly a multi-volume work. In truth, it might read better that way, emphasizing periods, modes, or results of the Reformations rather than implicitly attempting a monograph at quite this scale. As it stands, the sweep is so enormous that almost any non-specialist reader would learn a great deal from reading the whole thing, and the telling illuminated by sardonic humor and moral clarity.
In an early chapter, Eire tips his hand a bit when he expresses contempt for the humanist habit of classicizing last names (e.g. Schwarzerde -> Melanchthon). In effect, he accuses the humanists of thinking they are better than the world they grew up in, changing their names as a mark of their separation. This is not only a Protestant move, but it is predominantly Protestant. Let that be a keynote for Eire's moral emphasis: What he critiques, besides the obviously indefensible (e.g. the conquistadors), is usually what he takes to be elite self-regard. It is an odd note in what is largely an intellectual history, and often makes for sour reading.