The Reformation: A Very Short Introduction, Peter Marshall (Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 2009) 153pp., paperback, £7.99, $11.95, ISBN 978 0 19923 131 7

Very short introductions have been produced as a way into a new subject written by experts.  Here Peter Marshall, Professor of History at the University of Warwick, and respected author on early modern history in Britain, writes attractively on the politics, society and culture of the Reformation and provides a chronology, a bibliography and reading list.  There are some 19 black-and-white illustrations, not always as crystal clear as might be wished but including tellingly the Lucas Cranach portrait of Martin Luther which shows him as very much the Catholic friar.

Marshall offers a useful introduction in a short space to a complex subject and is to be complimented on his achievement.