Few figure in history have defined their time as dramatically as Martin Luther. Richard Marius portrays his inner compulsions, his struggle with himself and his God, the gestation of his theology, his relations with contemporaries, and his responses to opponents. Focusing in particular on the productive years 1516-1525, Marius' detailed account of Luther's writings yields a rich picture of the development of Luther's thought on the great questions that came to define the Reformation. Marius follows Luther from his birth in Saxony in 1483, during the reign of Frederick III, through his schooling in Erfurt, his flight to an Augustinian monastery and ordination to the outbreak of his revolt against Rome in 1517, the Wittenberg years, his progress to Worms, his exile in the Warburg, and his triumphant return to Wittenberg. Throughout, the text aims to acquaint the reader with pertinent issues: the question of authority in the church; the theology of penance; the timing of Luther's Reformation breakthrough; he German peasantry in 1525; Muntzer's revolutionaries; and the whys and hows of Luther's attack on Erasmus.