In this widely praised history, noted scholar James D. Tracy offers a comprehensive, lucid, and masterful exploration of early modern Europe's key turning point. Establishing a new standard for histories of the Reformation, Tracy explores the complex religious, political, and social processes that made change possible, even as he synthesizes new understandings of the profound continuities between medieval Catholic Europe and the multiconfessional sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This revised edition includes new material on Eastern Europe, on how ordinary people experienced religious change, and on the pluralistic societies that began to emerge. Richly illustrated and elegantly written, this book belongs in the library of all scholars, students, and general readers interested in the origins, events, and legacy of Europe's Reformation.