At a time when men and women were prepared to kill - and be killed - for their faith, the Reformation tore western world apart. In this title, the author re-creates the religious battles of priests, monarchs, scholars and politicians, from zealous Martin Luther nailing his Theses to door of a Wittenburg church to the radical Ignatius of Loyola.

Diarmaid MacCulloch is Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University. His Thomas Cranmer (1996) won the Whitbread Biography Prize, the James Tait Black Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize; Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490-1700 (2004) won the Wolfson Prize and the British Academy Prize. A History of Christianity (2010), which was adapted into a six-part BBC television series, was awarded the Cundill and Hessel-Tiltman Prizes. His Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh were published in 2013 as Silence: A Christian History. His most recent television series (2015) was Sex and the Church. He was knighted in 2012.