Professional Affiliation

Associate Professor of History, University of Iowa

Wilson Center Project

"Divided by Faith: A Social History of Religious Toleration in Europe"

Project Summary

"Divided by Faith" examines the practice of religious toleration and its opposite, the eruption of religious violence in Europe in the centuries between the Reformation and the French Revolution. Unlike previous histories of toleration, which focus on ideas and institutions, it looks at how ordinary people experienced and responded to the reality of religious diversity within their local communities. A comparative, synthetic project, "Divided by Faith" seeks to explain how the different religious groups managed, in some places, to live together peacefully; what kinds of arrangements and accommodations such coexistence entailed; and why toleration prevailed in some communities while others descended into sectarian violence.