Paperback. Black title on the cream cover.

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There are not many books that comment extensively on the subject of 16th Century Europe which 16-18 year olds would be able to understand and be further interested in. However, the inimitable Sir Geoffrey Elton was the light in the distance that helped myself and the other twenty or so students in my class pass our exams with considerable, and in one case remarkably GR Elton-ish, success.

Informative, arousing and -dare I say it?- exciting, this book was our saviour. As I read it as preparation for an essay or as reference, I could almost imagine GR Elton sitting next to me, reding it aloud like a bedtime story. And sometimes I did want to sleep, given the expansive historical detail contained within, but the whole thing reads like a great novel. Which in my now 21 year old opinion, is how history should be told.

Review: I first read this book 38 years ago when I was studying for my A Level History. It became an invaluable companion when I came to study the same period again for my undergraduate degree in history and where I was also fortunate enough to be tutored on Tudor England by Professor Elton in person, shortly before he retired in 1988.

Reformation Europe remains a benchmark text, despite now being somewhat dated. The reasons are clear enough. It’s a masterful and concise synthesis of the religious and political conflicts of the period. On the whole it is written with great verve, although some portions can be a little dry by modern standards. Elton brings the conflicts and religious disputes of the period alive. There are giants striding through these erudite pages – Luther, Charles V, Calvin, Zwingli, Francis I, Ignatius Loyola, Carafa (Pope Paul IV) – Elton brings them alive with pithy phrases and, not infrequently, devastating judgements on their personalities and deeds.

A magnificent book by one of our greatest historians. But don’t expect much social or economic history, areas which Professor Elton notoriously had little truck with. Nevertheless, you can do no better if you want an introduction to this fascinating period.

Sir Geoffrey Rudolph Elton FBA (born Gottfried Rudolf Otto Ehrenberg; 17 August 1921 – 4 December 1994) was a German-born British political and constitutional historian, specialising in the Tudor period. He taught at Clare College, Cambridge, and was the Regius Professor of Modern History there from 1983 to 1988.