Bruce Gordon is Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Yale University. He has written widely on early modern history and religion. He is the author of Calvin, The Swiss Reformation, and John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion.
“Uncovers and examines the complexities of Zwingli’s life and
legacy. . . . Gordon is sensitive to the challenges of explaining
Zwingli’s sixteenth-century world to modern readers.”—Amy Nelson
Burnett, Times Literary Supplement
“Gordon’s engagingly readable new life aims to give the
half-remembered Zwingli his due. It is appropriately empathetic,
but never hagiographical. . . . Gordon succeeds wonderfully in
locating Zwingli within a network of personal and theological
relationships, and within the culture and values of the world he
inhabited.”—Peter Marshall, Literary Review
“Gordon . . . keeps an admirably balanced and encompassing
perspective on the man who, when we consider the great figures of
the Reformation, seems fated to remain in the second
tier.”—Diarmaid MacCulloch, London Review of Books
“Zwingli shaped the reformed tradition just as much as the
better-known Calvin, and yet we know so much less about him. The
first of the Reformers to marry, he famously died on the
battlefield—as Luther gloated, a man of God slain by the sword.
This powerful biography brings Zwingli to life. It sets him amongst
his contemporaries, placing us alongside the dilemmas he faced.
Gordon shows us a remarkable man and a Reformation driven by
friendships, yet riven by hatreds.”—Lyndal Roper, author of Martin
Luther: Renegade and Prophet
“Gordon’s absorbing portrait of Huldrych Zwingli successfully
removes the varnish of centuries to reveal the contrasting colours
of the often-ignored Swiss Reformer. God’s Armed Prophet, he fought
his opponents and found the arguments for religious changes whose
radicality would indelibly mark the Protestant Reformation, with
lessons for our own age.”—Mark Greengrass, author of Christendom
Destroyed
“This brilliant biography makes Zwingli come alive, and sets his
life in the larger context of the Protestant Reformation with
verve, highlighting his larger significance while never losing
sight of the details that make him unique. A masterful blend of
narrative and analysis, based on painstaking research, especially
in Zwingli’s correspondence, this biography breaks new ground
expanding and deepening our understanding of one of the most
significant figures in early modern history.”—Carlos Eire, author
of Reformations
“Many of us have waited a long time for a new biography of Zwingli
and this book by Bruce Gordon has made it well worth the wait. It
is both a sensitive and informative telling of his life and work
but it is more than that. It is full of details that enliven the
story and bring out the humanity and commitments of the Swiss
Reformer. His importance for the reformation can no longer play
second fiddle to Calvin.”—Scott H. Hendrix, author of Martin
Luther
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