Diarmaid Macculloch

The Reformation which engulfed England and Europe in the 16th century was one of the most highly-charged, bloody and transformative periods in their history.

Ever since, it has remained one of the most contested. MacCulloch traces the evolution of the English Prayer Book and Bible and reassesses the impact of the Reformation on Catholicism. Henry VIII and his archbishop, Thomas Cranmer, are both central presences and MacCulloch swiftly dispatches some of the received wisdom about them.

Throughout, he brilliantly undermines one persistent English tradition of interpreting the Reformation - that it never really happened - and establishes that Anglicanism was really a product of Charles II's Restoration in 1660 rather than the 'Elizabethan Settlement' of 1559.

Diarmaid MacCulloch is Professor of The History of The Church at Oxford University. He presented numerous series for BBC television such as ‘How God Made the English’ and ‘Sex and the Church.’