Lyndal Roper, Summer of Fire and Blood ** 1/2

This history of the Peasant's War in Germany (1524-26) is extremely well researched and provides an abundance of detail about the massive public uprising that occurred just as the Reformation was taking hold. I got a clear sense of the peasant's grievances, the complex interplay of authority among the lords and clergymen, the social forces that led to the rebellion, even the attire of the armies. It's an impressive feat of research given that the events happened 500 years ago and the participants were either illiterate or self-interested.

Unfortunately, though, Roper writes like a sociologist rather than a narrative historian. The book is organized into chronological sections for autumn 1524 through summer 1525, but the individual chapters explore the conflict thematically, exploring concepts like freedom, lordship, and brotherhood. 

One cause for this collapse of authority was the empire's confusing patchwork of different rights and claims. What prevailed was not what we today understand by 'rule.' Rather, it was a kind of negotiated governing that depended on cooperation and, ultimately, comparative strength. Rights and jurisdictions could be bought and sold or even swapped. The buyer of a castle might gain judicial rights associated with it; the tithe of a village could be bought as an investment. ... Because sovereignty was frequently fragmented and not unitary, subjects could sometimes pick their fights and play one authority against another.

The result feels curiously static for a bloody and tragic war story, a description of the "rich detail of [the peasants'] daily lives" not a chronicle of battles. I would be hard pressed to describe the chronology of the conflict or its flashpoints.

The last 10 pages reveal the reason for this academic approach: "Some of the most profound political debates in historical writing of the last two hundred years, and especially over Marxism and its legacies, were fought out on the terrain of the German Peasants' War." Marx and Engels both wrote about it, East and West Germany highlighted different aspects of it, and historians of the Reformation blame it on one or another of the major religious figures. Roper is engaging with the meaning of the conflict more than the tale.