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Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (Abingdon Classics)

Subjects: Biography: general, Religion & Beliefs, Biography & Autobiography, Biography / Autobiography, Biography/Autobiography, General, Luther, Martin, Religious, 1483-1546, Biography, Clergy, Germany, Luther, Martin,, Lutheran Church, Reformation,

Standard English-Language Biography for Non-Scholarly Use
This is the standard English-language biography of Martin Luther, dating from 1950 but still being reprinted by various publishers. Written by the late Prof. Bainton of Yale, it is aimed at the more sophisticated general reader rather than the scholar. The bibliography in the Abingdon Press edition has not been updated since 1978 and is heavily weighted toward German-language books and articles. There are lengthy, translated quotations (set in very small type in the paperback edition), but they are not sourced. There are probably a dozen theological terms that may require a present-day lay reader to resort to a theological dictionary.

A unique strength of this book is the wide assortment of a hundred woodcuts from the Reformation period, but they are quite small and difficult to decipher in the paperback edition. It also ties in the economics and politics of the period to the Reformation.

The book's longevity may be attributed to its particular suitability for the lay reader, in that it is readable and largely self-contained.

Roland Bainton's Luther
"Here I Stand" is both the keystone of Roland Bainton's series of Reformation studies, including
his life of Sebastian Casellio, "The Travail of Religius Liberty" on Ochino, and the more condensed "Reformation of the Sixteenth Century"; it was in the years of my visits to Germany, the "1950's and 60's", regarded there as the best Luther biobgraphy ever written. All Bainton's books were enlivened by numerous rreproductions of contemporary woodcuts, few of them published anywhere else, and more accessible than even the usually shown, vividly first-hand Cranach portraits, but this biography includes the cream of the crop, whose originals were often set up on the bookshelves of his Yale Divinity School office.
Hugh Barbour, Earlham College & School of Religion emeritus

Here I Stand
This book was a great research source and a pretty easy read. I recommend this to anyone starting to study Martin Luther or the Reformation.

I Stand Alone
Good information on an important historical figure, but the reader has to tolerate far too much of the inane. For example, "...radio, television, and not even the internet were during John Calvin's time." Good to know.

Buyer Beware!
This edition of an otherwise wonderful book is terrible! The margins between the lines are so tight and the print so small and dense that one practically needs a magnifying glass to read it! We bought this as a Christmas gift for my husband's grandfather and were unable to give it to him because of its physical unreadability.

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