Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466/671536) remains, for good reason, the best-known humanist of his time. He influenced reformers, philosophers, politicians, literati, legal scholars, educators, artists and musicians in his own as well as in later centuries and covered an astonishingly broad range of topics: war and peace, politics and human dignity, jurisdiction and philosophy of law, church music and homiletics, piety and common wisdom, style and manners, as well as questions of matrimony, gender and education. Indeed, Erasmine thought continues to influence European intellectual history to this day. Christine Christ-von Wedel introduces Erasmus as a personality but also expands on his rich and multi-layered thinking and the struggles and longings in the age of Reformation characterised by his clashes with both Martin Luther and the Catholic establishment.

In 2015, Christine Christ-von Wedel received the prestigious Basel Wissenschaftspreis for her work on Humanism, Reformation and mission history. She is an honorary research fellow in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Basel and at the Institut für Schweizerische Reformationsgeschichte, University of Zurich.