About the Author

Mark Greengrass is Professor Emeritus at the University of Sheffield. His books include Governing Passions: Peace and Reform in the French Kingdoms, 1576-1585, France in the Age of Henri IV and The European Reformation, c.1500-1618.

Reviews

Mark Greengrass succeeds brilliantly in bringing to life a vanished world that is consistently strange and surprising-and sometimes disturbing and repellent-even as he encourages us to recognise the ways in which it prefigures our own
*Literary Review*

The Penguin History of Europe series ... is one of contemporary publishing's great projects
*New Statesman*

With five volumes now out, the Penguin History of Europe series ... is shaping up to be the best general account available, superseding all previous ones
*Economist*

Greengrass's learned book explores the bloody history of Europe . . . Nothing escapes Greengrass's gaze, from the arrival of pineapples to the making of maps. For sheer scholarly breadth, there is nothing to touch it this year
*Sunday Times BOOKS OF THE YEAR*

The political and religious conflicts of early modern Europe receive high-quality treatment from Greengrass . . . But he also gives a detailed account of changes in ordinary people's lives, from diet and clothes to language, making the book an excellent addition to the new Penguin History of Europe
*Financial Times BOOKS OF THE YEAR*

Christendom Destroyed captures a great deal of truth about the wrenching transitions of the early modern age. As difficult as this history is, Mr. Greengrass narrates it with admirable clarity and a notable lack of condescension
*Wall St Journal*