Protestant Empires: Globalizing the Reformations

Description

Protestantism during the early modern period is still predominantly presented as a European story. Advancing a novel framework to understand the nature and impact of the Protestant Reformations, this volume brings together leading scholars to substantially integrate global Protestant experiences into accounts of the early modern world created by the Reformations, to compare Protestant ideas and practices with other world religions, to chart colonial politics and experiences, and to ask how resulting ideas and identities were negotiated by Europeans at the time. Through its wide geographical and chronological scope, Protestant Empires advances a new approach to understanding the Protestant Reformations. Showcasing selective model approaches on how to think anew, and pointing the way towards a multi-national and connected account of the Protestant Reformations, this volume demonstrates how global interactions and their effect on Europe have played a crucial role in the history of the 'long Reformation' in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Ulinka Rublack is Professor of European History at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of Reformation Europe, 2nd edition (2017), and editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Protestant Reformations (2016) and The Concise Companion to History (2011).

'Protestant Empires cross-fertilizes two of the most productive trends in early modern historiography: the globalization of history, and the pluralization of the Reformation. In its richly researched chapters, an all-star cast of scholars kaleidoscopically portrays how Protestantism spread 'to the ends of the earth' with transformative effects from the Americas to Asia.' David Armitage, Harvard University, Massachusetts 'A fascinating project which illuminates areas of early modern religious history which are too often marginalized. Presenting the fruits of years of substantive research, Protestant Empires will be a helpful addition to our thinking about the broader spread of the Protestant cultural world.' Euan Cameron, Columbia University, New York 'Protestant Empires offers a variety of fascinating approaches to the task of writing a global history of the Reformation. Through case-studies of connection and comparison, its contributors integrate Protestant experiences in Europe and abroad. The book will provide an important stimulus for researching and teaching the Reformation within the frameworks of world history.' Bridget Heal, University of St Andrews '... there was more to the story of Protestantism's spread beyond Europe than just the English colonies in North America. Put together enough pieces, and a mosaic starts to appear. In this book, Ulinka Rublack, a Reformation historian at Cambridge who has a refreshing readiness to ask big questions, is helping to launch that mosaic-making process. Most of the 12 scholarly essays that she has assembled for this collection are precise case studies, glimpses of a highly varied and fragmented process.' Alec Ryrie, Church Times 'This volume, like its cover, is a splendid one.' Michael I. Bochenski, Anabaptism Today 'Through a set of meticulously researched, well-crafted and thematically coherent essays such as these, Protestant Empires succeeds in deepening our understanding of the global entanglements of early modern Germany and the Protestant Reformations ... the volume will undoubtedly become essential reading for anyone interested in early modern Europe and the global history of Christianity ... an incredibly rewarding and important read.' Richard Calis, German History