Overview

A compelling, authoritative history of how women shaped the Reformations and transformed religious life across the globe The Reformations, both Protestant and Catholic, have long been told as stories of men. But women were central to the transformations that took place in Europe and beyond. What was life like for them in this turbulent period? How did their actions and ideas shape Christianity and influence societies around the world? In this rich and definitive study, renowned scholar Merry Wiesner-Hanks explores the history of women and the Reformations in full for the first time. Wiesner-Hanks travels the globe, examining well-known figures like Teresa of Avila, Elizabeth I, and Anne Hutchinson, as well as women whose stories are only now emerging. Along the way, we meet converts in Japan, Spanish nuns in the Philippines, and saints in Ethiopia and America. Wiesner-Hanks explores women's experiences as monarchs, mothers, migrants, martyrs, mystics, and missionaries, revealing that the story of the Reformations is no longer simply European—and that women played a vital role.

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Reviews

“Not a history of ‘women in the Reformation’: this is a whole history of the Reformation with women at its centre, the people who have been written out of the story for so long put back where they belong. You’ll meet hundreds of remarkable women, but your whole sense of the era will also shift on its axis.”—Alec Ryrie, author of Protestants “Vivid portraits, complex dynamics, and a compelling narrative that takes us a wide range encompassing Monarchs, Migrants and Mystics. Wiesner-Hanks portrays women as critical agents reframing religious ideas, communities, and institutions at their core – with conviction, controversy, and global impact.”—Nicholas Terpstra, author of Religious Refugees in the Early Modern World   “This is a tour de force by the leading historian of premodern women, global history, and the Reformations. Wiesner-Hanks offers a brilliant analysis of women’s dynamic participation in a truly global religious phenomenon in a major work that opens up many new avenues for future investigation.”—Susan Broomhall, author of The Identities of Catherine de' Medici “This imaginative and artful historical overview places hundreds of distinctive women where they belong in the global religious upheavals of the early modern era—at the center. I can't think of another book that so skillfully balances the dramas of individual lives of truly diverse backgrounds with larger questions of gender, spirituality, and social change.  Merry Wiesner-Hanks is the ideal guide in this journey of discovery.”—Joel F. Harrington, author of The Faithful Executioner

Author Information

Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks is distinguished professor of history and women’s and gender studies emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is the author or editor of thirty books, including Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, What Is Early Modern History?, Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World, and The Marvelous Hairy Girls.

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