J.’s Reviews > The Reformation > Status Update

~18% through The Reformation — Durant keeps reinforcing that Luther was not the spark in a vacuum. Across England, Burgundy, Germany, and now Bohemia, pressures were already building: nationalism, resentment of church wealth, demands for reform, rising literacy, and increasingly independent political cultures. Favorite Durant moment so far: his dry observation that the printing press enabled the spread of nonsense on an unprecedented scale — proof that some human behaviors are gloriously timeless.