Books to read if you loved Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light

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Reading lists

Books to read if you loved Hilary Mantel’s ‘The Mirror & The Light’

A Life

Thomas Cromwell

A SUNDAY TIMES, THE TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, SPECTATOR, FINANCIAL TIMES, GUARDIAN, BBC HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 
 
'This is the biography we have been awaiting for 400 years' Hilary Mantel 
'A masterpiece' Dan Jones, Sunday Times 
 
Thomas Cromwell is one of the most famous - or notorious - figures in English history. Born in obscurity in Putney, he became a fixer for Cardinal Wolsey in the 1520s. After Wolsey's fall, Henry VIII promoted him to a series of ever greater offices, and by the end of the 1530s he was effectively running the country for the King. That decade was one of the most momentous in English history: it saw a religious break with the Pope, unprecedented use of parliament, the dissolution of all monasteries. Cromwell was central to all this, but establishing his role with precision, at a distance of nearly five centuries and after the destruction of many of his papers at his own fall, has been notoriously difficult. 
 
Diarmaid MacCulloch's biography is much the most complete and persuasive life ever written of this elusive figure, a masterclass in historical detective work, making connections not previously seen. It overturns many received interpretations, for example that Cromwell was a cynical, 'secular' politician without deep-felt religious commitment, or that he and Anne Boleyn were allies because of their common religious sympathies - in fact he destroyed her. It introduces the many different personalities of these foundational years, all conscious of the 'terrifyingly unpredictable' Henry VIII. MacCulloch allows readers to feel that they are immersed in all this, that it is going on around them. 
 
For a time, the self-made 'ruffian' (as he described himself) - ruthless, adept in the exercise of power, quietly determined in religious revolution - was master of events. MacCulloch's biography for the first time reveals his true place in the making of modern England and Ireland, for good and ill.

Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch is one of finest historians in the English-speaking world and preeminent in the area of the English Reformation. He has combined his expertise in 16th-century history with a compelling literary style in his latest book ... the definitive work on Henry VIII's great minister and an extraordinary insight into the politics and religion of the age, and of any age for that matter. Thomas Cromwell's somewhat dark reputation was given a new and bright shine by Hilary Mantel in the Wolf Hall trilogy and this life takes us from the fictional into the authentic; its triumph is that it is just as thrilling and equally stimulating and challenging. A profoundly important book.

Meticulous and magisterial ... If this is not the definitive biography, I don't know what that would look like

Triumphant and definitive ... a masterpiece of documentary detective-work, which buzzes with the excitement of a great historian immersed in archives

A model of classical historical biography at its finest

The definitive biography ... exhaustively researched and superbly written

The Tudor minister brought to fictional life in Wolf Hall is given a definitive scholarly treatment in this long-awaited, masterful, wry biography

Writings on the Reformation

All Things Made New

The Reformation which engulfed England and Europe in the sixteenth century was one of the most highly-charged, bloody and transformative periods in their history, and has remained one of the most contested. In this dazzling book, Diarmaid MacCulloch explores a turbulent and endlessly fascinating era. 
 
'A masterly take on the Reformation ... absorbing and compelling, full of insights' Linda Hogan, Irish Times 
 
'One of our very best public historians ... as this collection triumphantly confirms, MacCulloch writes authoritatively and engagingly on a remarkably diverse range of topics in the history of Christian culture' Peter Marshall, Literary Review 
 
'Written with elegance and sometimes donnish wit ... he wears his learning lightly' Robert Tombs, The Times 
 
'Dazzling ... prodigiously learned ... MacCulloch has a gift for explaining complicated things simply' Jack Scarisbrick, Catholic Herald

MacCulloch not only brings a lifetime's learning to bear on his subject, but writes with vigour, empathy and wit ... about identity and memory, about the importance of myths and why historians need to challenge them.

All Things Made New is a serious book on a serious subject. It is written with elegance and sometimes donnish wit

MacCulloch is ... able to write authoritatively and engagingly on a remarkably diverse range of topics in the history of Christian culture and thought.

Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation

Tudor Church Militant

Edward VI died a teenager in 1553, yet his brief reign would shape the future of the nation, unleashing a Protestant revolution that propelled England into the heart of the Reformation. This dramatic account takes a fresh look at one of the most significant and turbulent periods in English history. 
 
'A challenging, elegant and persuasive biography of an unjustly neglected king' Jerry Brotton, author of This Orient Isle 
 
'MacCulloch puts the young Edward at the centre of the action ... as this excellent and lively study shows, his ghost continues to haunt the history of Anglicanism' Sunday Times 
 
'This is Reformation history as it should be written, not least because it resembles its subject matter: learned, argumentative, and, even when mistaken, never dull' Eamon Duffy, author of The Stripping of the Altars 
 
'One of the best historians writing in English today' Sunday Telegraph

A Christian History

Silence

This book unravels a polyphony of silences from the history of Christianity and beyond. MacCulloch considers Judaeo-Christian borrowings from Greek explorations of the divine, and the silences which were a feature of Jesus's brief ministry. Besides prayer and contemplation, there are shame and evasion; careless and purposeful forgetting. 
 
Many deliberate silences are revealed: the forgetting of histories inconvenient to later Church authorities, and Christianity's problems in dealing honestly with sexuality. Behind all this is the silence of God. In a deeply personal conclusion, MacCulloch brings a message of optimism for those still seeking God beyond the clamour of over-confident certainties.

The First Three Thousand Years

A History of Christianity

Diarmaid MacCulloch's epic, acclaimed history A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years follows the story of Christianity around the globe, from ancient Palestine to contemporary China. 
 
 How did an obscure personality cult come to be the world's biggest religion, with a third of humanity its followers? This book, now the most comprehensive and up to date single volume work in English, describes not only the main facts, ideas and personalities of Christian history, its organization and spirituality, but how it has changed politics, sex, and human society. 
 
 Taking in wars, empires, reformers, apostles, sects, churches and crusaders, Diarmaid MacCulloch shows how Christianity has brought humanity to the most terrible acts of cruelty - and inspired its most sublime accomplishments. 
 
 'A stunning tour de force' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Simon Sebag Montefiore, Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year 
 
 'A landmark in its field, astonishing in its range, compulsively readable, full of insight ... It will have few, if any, rivals in the English language' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, Guardian 
 
 'A prodigious, thrilling, masterclass of a history book' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;John Cornwell, Financial Times 
 
 'Essential reading for those enthralled by Christianity and for those enraged by it' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Melvyn Bragg, Observer, Books of the Year 
 
 'Magnificent ... a sumptuous portrait, alive with detail and generous in judgement' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Richard Holloway, The Times 
 
 Diarmaid MacCulloch is Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University. His Thomas Cranmer won the Whitbread Biography Prize, the James Tait Black Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize. He is the author most recently of Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490 - 1700, which won the Wolfson Prize for History and the British Academy Prize.

Christianity, one of the world's great religions, has had an incalculable impact on human history. This book, now the most comprehensive and up to date single volume work in English, describes not only the main ideas and personalities of Christian history, its organisation and spirituality, but how it has changed politics, sex, and human society. 
 
Diarmaid MacCulloch ranges from Palestine in the first century to India in the third, from Damascus to China in the seventh century and from San Francisco to Korea in the twentieth. He is one of the most widely travelled of Christian historians and conveys a sense of place as arrestingly as he does the power of ideas. He presents the development of Christian history differently from any of his predecessors. He shows how, after a semblance of unity in its earliest centuries, the Christian church divided during the next 1400 years into three increasingly distanced parts, of which the western Church was by no means always the most important: he observes that at the end of the first eight centuries of Christian history, Baghdad might have seemed a more likely capital for worldwide Christianity than Rome. This is the first truly global history of Christianity.

Europe's House Divided 1490-1700

Reformation

The definitive history of the most important event in European history between the fall of the Roman Empire and the French Revolution is coming in paperback.

'A masterpiece ... In its field it is the best book ever' Guardian 
 
Winner of the Wolfson Prize for history, Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490-1700 charts a seismic shift in European culture that marked the beginning of the modern world. 
 
 At a time when men and women were prepared to kill - and be killed - for their faith, the Reformation tore the western world apart. Acclaimed as the definitive account of these epochal events, Diarmaid MacCulloch's history brilliantly re-creates the religious battles of priests, monarchs, scholars and politicians, from the zealous Martin Luther nailing his Theses to the door of a Wittenburg church to the radical Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order; from Thomas Cranmer, martyred for his reforms, to the ambitious Philip II, unwavering in his campaign against Europe's 'heretics'. 
 
 Weaving together the many strands of Reformation and Counter-Reformation, ranging widely across Europe and even to the new world, MacCulloch also reveals as never before how these upheavals affected everyday lives - overturning ideas of love, sex, death and the supernatural, and shaping the modern age. 
 
 'Magisterial and eloquent' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;David Starkey 
 
 'A triumph of human sympathy' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Blair Worden, Sunday Telegraph 
 
 'From politics to witchcraft, from the liturgy to sex; the sweep of European history covered here is breathtakingly panoramic. This is a model work of history' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year 
 
 'Monumental ... Reformation is set to become a landmark' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Lisa Jardine, Observer 
 
 Diarmaid MacCulloch is Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University. His Thomas Cranmer won the Whitbread Biography Prize, the James Tait Black Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize. He is also the author of A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years.

The Reformation was the seismic event in European history over the past 1000 years, and one which tore the medieval world apart. Not just European religion, but thought, culture, society, state systems, personal relations - everything - was turned upside down. Just about everything which followed in European history can be traced back in some way to the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation which it provoked. The Reformation is where the modern world painfully and dramatically began, and MacCulloch's great history of it is recognised as the best modern account.

Diarmaid MacCulloch

Magisterial ... In Lower than the Angels, Diarmaid MacCulloch offers a history of sex and Christianity that is both confronting and reassuring in its detail and complexity, taking biblical scholarship and theological development seriously at the same time as insisting on the historian’s independence. A thrilling read.

A compelling and encyclopedic survey of how Christianity makes sense of sexual desire. MacCulloch is an ideal guide in tracing this story... [he] writes with such liveliness and energy that the reader hardly notices the length of the book or the comprehensiveness of its field of reference … His narrative is dispassionate, sometimes quietly and wittily deflationary, careful and generous, its own moral compass neither intrusive nor indecipherable…. He is judicious and convincing.

Immensely broad in scope, incredibly detailed and enormously readable, with no small measure of humour… This is a book which repays the reader time and again.  The overarching narrative is fascinating ad the treatment of the subject is magisterial.

Incendiary ... a comprehensive and richly entertaining history of the ways in which, for 3,000 years, the church has tied itself in knots over sex (and love and marriage). [It] offers a fabulous catalogue of the babel of voices in the Bible and the ways that they have been interpreted, invariably for political purposes, down the centuries.

Diarmaid MacCulloch explains in Lower than the Angels [how] many biblical pronouncements on sexuality are ambiguous, if not downright contradictory ... by showing us the bigger picture, MacCulloch allows the reader to fully appreciate the complexity and diversity of Christian experience, and to identify recurrent themes. Those who are offended by the loose morals of contemporary Western society will surely be further angered by this thought-provoking and compassionate book.

Wry and original… As a compendious and rigorous guide to the histories that underlie current church debates on sex and gender, this work is invaluable.

[A] magisterial account of three millennia of recorded history, written in both cheerfully irreverent and briskly expository style ... Encompassing everything from marriage to masturbation, from contraception to the immaculate conception, Lower than the Angels is an exhaustive study.

A History of Sex and Christianity

The Bible observes that God made humanity ‘for a while a little lower than the angels’. If humans are that close to angels, does the difference lie in human sexuality and what we do with it? Much of the political contention and division in societies across the world centres on sexual topics, and one-third of the global population is Christian in background or outlook. In a single lifetime, Christianity or historically Christian societies have witnessed one of the most extraordinary about-turns in attitudes to sex and gender in human history. There have followed revolutions in the place of women in society, a new place for same-sex love amid the spectrum of human emotions and a public exploration of gender and trans identity. For many the new situation has brought exciting liberation – for others, fury and fear. 
 
This book seeks to calm fears and encourage understanding through telling a 3000-year-long tale of Christians encountering sex, gender and the family, with noises off from their sacred texts. The message of Lower than the Angels is simple, necessary and timely: to pay attention to the sheer glorious complexity and contradictions in the history of Christianity. The reader can decide from the story told here whether there is a single Christian theology of sex, or many contending voices in a symphony that is not at all complete. Oxford’s Emeritus Professor of the History of the Church introduces an epic of ordinary and extraordinary Christians trying to make sense of themselves and of humanity’s deepest desires, fears and hopes.

Diarmaid MacCulloch

Praise for Lower than the Angels

Magisterial ... In Lower than the Angels, Diarmaid MacCulloch offers a history of sex and Christianity that is both confronting and reassuring in its detail and complexity, taking biblical scholarship and the ...

A compelling and encyclopedic survey of how Christianity makes sense of sexual desire. MacCulloch is an ideal guide in tracing this story... [he] writes with such liveliness and energy that the reader hardly notices ...

Immensely broad in scope, incredibly detailed and enormously readable, with no small measure of humour… This is a book which repays the reader time and again. The overarching narrative is fascinating ad the treatme ...

Magisterial ... In Lower than the Angels, Diarmaid MacCulloch offers a history of sex and Christianity that is both confronting and reassuring in its detail and complexity, taking biblical scholarship and the ...

A compelling and encyclopedic survey of how Christianity makes sense of sexual desire. MacCulloch is an ideal guide in tracing this story... [he] writes with such liveliness and energy that the reader hardly notices ...

Immensely broad in scope, incredibly detailed and enormously readable, with no small measure of humour… This is a book which repays the reader time and again. The overarching narrative is fascinating ad the treatme ...

Magisterial ... In Lower than the Angels, Diarmaid MacCulloch offers a history of sex and Christianity that is both confronting and reassuring in its detail and complexity, taking biblical scholarship and the ...

A compelling and encyclopedic survey of how Christianity makes sense of sexual desire. MacCulloch is an ideal guide in tracing this story... [he] writes with such liveliness and energy that the reader hardly notices ...

Immensely broad in scope, incredibly detailed and enormously readable, with no small measure of humour… This is a book which repays the reader time and again. The overarching narrative is fascinating ad the treatme ...

Books by Diarmaid MacCulloch

Articles featuring Diarmaid MacCulloch

Books to read if you loved Hilary Mantel’s ‘The Mirror & The Light’

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