Long Reads: Anabaptism and the Radical Reformation w/ Martin Empson
After the German Peasants’ War, Anabaptism became a vehicle for social discontent.
February 7, 2025
41 min
1,631 of 1,867

February 7, 2025
Long Reads: Anabaptism and the Radical Reformation w/ Martin Empson
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Jacobin Episodes Around February 7, 2025
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41:09This episodeLong Reads: Anabaptism and the Radical Reformation w/ Martin Empson
Summary
<p>Last year, Martin Empson joined <em>Long Reads</em> to speak about the German Peasants’ War, Europe’s biggest social revolt before the French Revolution. Martin returns to talk about what happened next.</p>
<p>After the revolt was crushed, radical religious tendencies became a vehicle for social discontent. The most famous of those tendencies was known as Anabaptism. A group of religious radicals inspired by Anabaptist ideas even took power in the German town of Münster. After the bloody repression of the Munster rebels, the very idea of Anabaptism became a sinister bogeyman for Europe’s ruling classes.</p>
<p>Martin’s book <em>The Time of the Harvest Has Come: Revolution, Reformation and the German Peasants’ War</em> will be published later this year.</p>
<p>Read Martin’s <em>Jacobin</em> article, “Anabaptism Was the Revolutionary Face of Reformation Europe,” here: <a href="https://jacobin.com/2024/07/anabaptism-reformation-europe-peasants-revolution" rel="nofollow">https://jacobin.com/2024/07/anabaptism-reformation-europe-peasants-revolution</a></p>
<p><em>Long Reads</em> is a <em>Jacobin</em> podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by features editor Daniel Finn. Produced by Conor Gillies with music by Knxwledge.</p>
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