{"title":"Books by Alec Ryrie","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780008210007","title":"Protestants","description":"On the 500th anniversary of Luther’s rebellion, this spectacular global history traces the revolutionary faith that shaped the modern world.Five hundred years ago Protestant Christianity began with one stubborn monk – today, it includes a billion people across the globe. The upheaval Martin Luther triggered inspired one of the most creative and destructive movements in human history. Protestants is the story of the men and women who made and remade this quarrelsome faith by demanding alarming new freedoms and experimenting in new systems of government. Inspired by their newly accessible Bibles, they transformed their inner lives, a transformation that spilled over into social upheavals and political revolutions. Alec Ryrie’s dazzling history explores how its restless energy made and is still making the modern world.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56220843114869,"sku":"9780008210007","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008210007_6dabc94c-b72c-4b18-9cc5-79a4a882096f.jpg?v=1785658940"},{"product_id":"9780008299859","title":"Unbelievers","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhy have Western societies that were once overwhelmingly Christian become so secular?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLooking to the feelings and faith of ordinary people, the award-winning author of Protestants Alec Ryrie offers a bold new history of atheism.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe think we know the history of faith: how the ratio of Christian believers has declined and a secular age dawned. In this startlingly original history, Alex Ryrie puts faith in the dock to explore how religious belief didn’t just fade away. Rather, atheism bloomed as a belief system in its own right.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnbelievers looks back to the middle ages when it seemed impossible not to subscribe to Christianity, through the crisis of the Reformation and to the powerful, challenging cultural currents of the centuries since.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs this history shows, the religious journey of the Western world was lived and steered not just by published philosophy and the celebrated thinkers of the day – the Machiavellis and Michel de Montaignes – but by men and women at every level of society. Their voices and feelings permeate this book in the form of diaries, letters and court records.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTracing the roots of atheism, Ryrie shows that our emotional responses to the times can lead faith to wax and wane: anger at a corrupt priest or anxiety in a turbulent moment spark religious doubt as powerfully as any intellectual revolution. With Christianity under contest and ethical redefinitions becoming more and more significant, Unbelievers shows that to understand how something as intuitive as belief is shaped over time, we must look to an emotional history – one with potent lessons for our still angry and anxious age.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56221438083445,"sku":"9780008299859","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008299859_d3d9efc7-7b71-49cf-a2bc-0015342472a0.jpg?v=1785658594"},{"product_id":"9780300279047","title":"The World's Reformation","description":"A vivid history of how Protestantism was spread across the globe, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century “Mr. Ryrie has produced the rare book that deserves attention from both believers and skeptics.”—D.G. Hart, Wall Street Journal Protestantism revolutionised early modern Europe. Radical theologians transformed the lives of thousands across the continent, irrevocably changing politics and society. But what about beyond Europe’s borders? Was global Christianity just a Catholic endeavour? Alec Ryrie explores the untold history of how Protestants tried to spread their religion abroad, from Lapland to Chile and Barbados to Taiwan. At the story’s heart are the non-Christian people whom Protestants met more often than any others during this period: those they had enslaved in the Americas, Africa, and eastern Asia. We see how Protestants dealt with, or evaded, the moral failure of the slave trade, and how their missionary efforts were disappointments at best, utter fiascos at worst.    Their world Reformation, its failures, and its consequences for both good and ill, has largely been forgotten. This fascinating history makes the case for why it is worth remembering.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56367954461045,"sku":"9780300279047","price":35.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780300279047.jpg?v=1791212786"},{"product_id":"the-age-of-hitler-and-how-we-will-survive-it","title":"The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It","description":"We live in an age where Hitler and the Nazis dominate our cultural imagination, shaping values once defined by religion. Historian Alec Ryrie explores why society remains captivated by this struggle, exploring history and fiction as well as modern myths such as \u003ci\u003eStar Wars \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eHarry Potter\u003c\/i\u003e. He examines the costs of our Nazi obsession and questions what will come as our anti-Nazi moral consensus frays. With a fresh take on modern history and pop culture, \u003ci\u003eThe Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It\u003c\/i\u003e offers a thought-provoking look at the culture wars and our shifting political crises, challenging assumptions on both the Left and the Right and asking what a new moral vision might look like.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57507914121589,"sku":"9781836392699","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781836392699.jpg?v=1787043063"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-alec-ryrie.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}