Summer of Fire and Blood, Lyndal Roper
Summer of Fire and Blood, Lyndal Roper
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Summer of Fire and Blood
The German Peasants' War

Author: Lyndal Roper

Narrator: Rose Akroyd

Unabridged: 13 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 02/11/2025

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

In this “extraordinary and brilliant book” (Helen Castor, author of She-Wolves), a prize-winning historian offers the definitive account   of the sixteenth-century uprising that revolutionized Europe

The German Peasants’ War was the greatest popular uprising in Western Europe before the French Revolution. In 1524 and 1525, it swept across Germany with astonishing speed as well over a hundred thousand people massed in armed bands to demand a new and more egalitarian order. The peasants took control of vast areas of southern and middle Germany, torching and plundering the monasteries, convents, and castles that stood in their way. But they proved no match for the forces of the lords, who put down the revolt by slaying somewhere between seventy and a hundred thousand peasants in just over two months. 
 
In Summer of Fire and Blood, the first history of the German Peasants’ War in a generation, historian Lyndal Roper exposes the far-reaching ramifications of this rebellion. Though the war’s victors portrayed the uprising as naive and inchoate, Roper reveals a mass movement that sought to make good on the radical potential of the Protestant Reformation. By recovering what the people themselves felt and believed, Summer of Fire and Blood reconstructs the thrilling, tragic story of the peasants’ fight to change the world. 

About Lyndal Roper

Lyndal Roper is the Regius Professor of History at the University of Oxford. Her books include Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet and Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany. She lives in Oxford, England.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Christina on February 24, 2025

When I saw Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasant’s War on NetGalley I wanted to read it immediately. I primarily enjoy historical fiction but throw in some nonfiction history here and there, especially if I want to learn more about the era. This book is very robust! It is full of information......more

Goodreads review by Caleb on April 07, 2025

Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasant’s War is a meticulous dive into the German Peasant uprising during the early reformation period of the 16th century. Throughout this book, the author informs the reader how the largest European revolution prior to the French Revolution started with the pe......more

Goodreads review by Joelendil on October 13, 2024

Prior to reading this book, I encountered the German Peasants’ War as little more than a sordid footnote to the life of Martin Luther and history of the Protestant Reformation. Lyndal Roper’s painstakingly researched book provided me with a much more thorough understanding of the tragic events. I app......more

Goodreads review by Ilya on February 10, 2025

I loved Lyndal Roper’s biography of Luther, and, given my interest in all things Reformation, I requested an ARC as soon as I saw it. Once again, Roper does not disappoint: this is a masterful, scholarly, and intelligent account of a critical event in European history. Roper organizes her account by......more

Goodreads review by Mike on March 23, 2025

Did you ever buy a book on history and find the title to be completely misleading? Did you ever buy a book, and have it ruined by the author's trying to imprint modern views on something that happened almost 500 years ago? If you like this kind of book, Summer of Fire and Blood may be just the thing......more

Quotes

“This is a riveting account of a seismic event in German history that conveys a real sense of why so many ordinary people thought they could change the world. Lyndal Roper writes beautifully and displays a compassionate understanding for the protagonists on both sides of this complex and bloody struggle.”—Peter Wilson, author of The Thirty Years War

“Summer of Fire and Blood is an extraordinary and brilliant book. In Roper’s evocatively beautiful, crystal-clear prose, the complex landscapes of early sixteenth-century Germany—physical, psychological, spiritual, social, and political—unfold before our eyes. She shows us the dreams and deeds that shaped the Peasants’ War, the greatest popular revolt in western Europe before the French Revolution, and the ways in which that war shaped the future that followed. This is a profound account of an attempt to change the world, a sensational narrative that is both human and humane, illuminating, resonant, and unsettling.”—Helen Castor, author of She-Wolves

“Summer of Fire and Blood brings the drama, violence, and contingency of the German Peasants’ War to vivid life thanks to the unparalleled scholarly and writing skills of historian Roper. There is simply no more compelling or insightful account of this tumultuous mass uprising.”—Joel F. Harrington, author of The Faithful Executioner

“Beautifully and sensitively written, Summer of Fire and Blood tells the forgotten trauma of the sixteenth century—when thousands of ordinary people risked all they had in the hope of ushering in a new world. It takes the stories of our unlettered, peasant ancestors from the sidelines of history and, recentering them, restores their full humanity. And it warns us that the questions they posed are the very urgent questions that confront us again now.”—Suzannah Lipscomb, author of Journey Through Tudor England

“Roper is a breathtaking storyteller. Her explosive reassessment of the Peasants’ War is a theological, ecological, and social epic. She shows why the chaotic violence, symbolic arsenal of brotherhood, and maze of dreams and visions should matter to us in the twenty-first century.”—Joanna Bourke, author of Fear

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