From 1986 to 2013: The Debate On The English Reformation



Rosemary O'Day, Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate in History at the Open University, has revised her 1986 book on the historiography of the English Reformation. From Manchester University Press:

Extensively revised and updated, this new edition of The debate on the English Reformation combines a discussion of successive historical approaches to the English Reformation with a critical review of recent debates in the area, offering a major contribution to modern historiography as well as to Reformation studies. It explores the way in which successive generations have found the Reformation relevant to their own times and have in the process rediscovered, redefined and rewritten its story. It shows that not only people who called themselves historians but also politicians, ecclesiastics, journalists and campaigners argued about interpretations of the Reformation and the motivations of its principal agents. The author also shows how, in the twentieth century, the debate was influenced by the development of history as a subject and, in the twenty-first century, by state control of the academy. Undergraduates, researchers and lecturers alike will find this an invaluable and essential companion to their studies.

Introduction

1. Contemporary historiography of the English Reformation, 1525–70
2. Interpretations of the Reformation from Fuller to Strype
3. Historians and contemporary politics: 1780–1850
4. The Church of England in crisis: the Reformation heritage
5. The Tudor revolution in religion: the twentieth-century debate
6. The Reformation and the people: Discovery
7. The Church: how it changed
8. The Debate in the age of peer review
9. The Place of the Reformation in modern biography, fiction and the media
Conclusion: Reformation: Reformulation, Reiteration and Reflections
Further Reading
Name index
Subject index

I've indicated the completely new chapters with bold type, but as the publisher's blurb notes that the book is "extensively revised and updated" I would not be surprised to see new material in the other chapters, too. Should be a fascinating update on a text which helped me considerably in my early research.