The Dreadful History and Judgement of God on Thomas Müntzer: The Life and Times of an Early German Revolutionary

"You will be gripped and inspired by this exciting story, I couldn't put it down."
-Lyndal Roper, author of Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet

On the 500th anniversary of the German Peasant Wars, a brilliant portrait of Thomas Munzter: radical millenarian preacher, revolutionary, and iconoclast

'The princes are nothing but tyrants who flay the people; they fritter away our blood and sweat on their pomp and whoring and knavery.' These were the words of Thomas Müntzer at the head of the massed ranks of a peasant army in the year 1525. Ranged against him were the might of the princes of the German Nation. How did Müntzer, the son of a coin maker from central Germany, rise in just a few short years to become one of the most feared revolutionaries in early modern Europe?

In this brilliant work of historical excavation, Andrew Drummond charts the life and times of the man Martin Luther denounced as a 'Ravening Wolf' and 'False Prophet'. Drummond shows us Müntzer as a human being. Far from the bloodthirsty devil of legend, he was a man of considerable learning and principle, deeply sympathetic to the misery of the peasantry and the poor. In his short life - he was beheaded at thirty-five - Müntzer promised to fundamentally upend German society.

Seeking to save Müntzer from the condescension of history, Drummond guides us through the religious and political disputes of the Reformation, placing his life and thought in the context of those turbulent years. The result is a portrait of an often contradictory but always radical figure, one who continues to inspire movements of the poor across the globe.

Author: Andrew Drummond
Publisher: Verso
Published: 02/20/2024
Pages: 384
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.20lbs
Size: 9.40h x 6.12w x 1.11d
ISBN: 9781839768941

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 12/18/2023

About the Author
Andrew Drummond is a historian, novelist, and translator based in Edinburgh. He is the author of five novels: An Abridged History of the Construction of a Railway Line Between Ullapool and Lochinver; A Hand-book of Volapük; Elephantine; Novgorod the Great; and The Books of the Incarceration of the Lady Grange. He has also written short stories and translations from German. More recently, he has written a biography of the 18th century adventurer Maurice Benyovszky, and an account of the attempts to extend rail connections to the northwest Highlands of Scotland.