The many ways in which the two major religious movements of the Reformation and the Counter Reformation - the Protestant and the Catholic - were diffused are brought forth through individual and collective efforts in the fields of the arts, literature, education, liturgy and rituals, preaching, propaganda, debates and polemics. The authors of this volume have used methods of cultural history, historical anthropology, history of communications, and micro-history to reveal a common source in the methods of propaganda, with the emphasis on what is inherent to the religious catholic sensibilities on the one hand, and the protestant view of the world on the other.

With contributions by Denis Crouzet, Francis Higman, Marianne Carbonnier-Burkard, Marc Vénard, Bernard Roussel, Jean Loup Lemaître, Alain Tallon, Leonardo Cohen, Nadine Kuperty-Tsur, Max Engammare, François Lestringant, Nicole Hochner, Raymond A. Mentzer, Robert Sauzet, Myriam Greilsammer, Nicole Lemaitre, Jacques Le Brun, Pierre Bonniffet, Edith Weber, Roger Zuber, Jean-François Gilmont, Isabelle Martin and Gabriel Guarino.