A milestone in the field of Reformation studies, this major biography of Martin Luther focuses on the young man Luther, specifically the years 1483 to 1521. It compliments chronologically Heinrich Bornkamm's Luther in Mid Career--1521-1530

In this definitive study, Martin Brecht accomplishes two important tasks. First, he contrasts the theological perspectives of earlier biographies with the results of more modern research into Luther's socio-economic context, psychological relationships, late medieval and humanist thought, university curricula, and political factors. Second, in keeping with his theory that the historical discipline "must make its results accessible to a wider audience" unless it wishes to encourage the "historical amnesia which it so often laments," Brecht communicates the findings of technical Reformation scholarship to the public in a comprehensible style.

Illuminating the many facets of Luther's personality, Brecht explores the various roles to which Luther committed himself--sinner, polemicist, preacher and pastor, leader, teacher, scholar, and human being. he asserts that "the Reformation discovery was not just simply the minor finding of a theological specialist . . . but rather a new religious disposition with an inherent extraordinary dynamic." Brecht then investigates this new religious disposition through the Diet of Worms, leaving young Martin Luther just on the brink of his appearance on the "stage of the world."