As a part of the new series "Problems in European Civilization," published by Houghton Mifflin under the general editorship of Merry E. Wiesner, <i>The Long Reformation</i>, edited by Jeffrey R. Watt, is very appropriate for my AP European History students.

Why men must take charge of women was obvious to both Calvin and Luther. Noted the latter, "women are created for no other purpose than to serve men and be their helpers. If women grow weary or even die while bearing children, that doesn’t harm anything…" (191). Through quotes like this, you will find multiple uses for this readable and scholarly book.

Rather than require that every student in my AP European History class purchase this book, there are copies on reserve in the library. We study this text after the unit on the Reformation. Techniques for the dissemination of information in <i>The Long Reformation</i> include selected oral reports (mostly from Parts IV and V); a major debate examining continuity versus change; a two-page double spaced typed compare and contrast essay; and a simulation whose contest is provided by material from Watt’s book. Students role play parts of Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII (missing from Watt’s book), St. Teresa, Argula von Grumbach, Marie Dentiere, Angela Merici, and one group as the Consistory, and another as the Spanish Inquisition. The core assignments for the entire class include the introductions to the volume plus Watt’s introduction to each of the five parts. My students enthusiastically embrace the contents of Parts IV and V, while they found the first three parts to be needlessly dry.

Part IV includes Merry E. Wiesner’s "The Reformation of the Women." French Calvinist Charlotte de Morney was excommunicated by the Montauban Consistory in 1584 along with "her entire household because she wore her hair in curls" (147). Wiesner concludes with women of the Reformation who "saw gender as socially constructed. They saw themselves (and sometimes other women) as less determined by their biology and social status, and more by their intellectual capacities, spiritual gifts, and, among noblewomen, social class" (159).

Part V ("The Success of the Reformation") ties together the themes of the first four parts. Philip Benedict’s article "New Calvinist Men and Women?" appears last in the section--no doubt for a reason. The question mark tells all. More research must be carried out for the definitive answer as to how effective the process of "social disciplining" was "in the works of the Reformation" (236). Evidence suggests that drinking and drunkenness did not decline in the Long Reformation. Positive results did occur: "Feuding, interpersonal violence, and sexual misconduct apparently declined" (240-241). Reformed Calvinist ritual replaced those of the Catholic Church where it had gained political victory. However, Benedict thinks that the major problem with new scholarship (which emphasizes the similarities rather than the differences of the Reformations) is that "it downplays each faith’s distinctiveness within the domain of culture and the religious life" (243). Social identity and religiosity were inextricably linked.