Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison: A Biography

Martin E. Marty

Princeton University Press, Feb 25, 2020 - Biography & Autobiography - 296 pages

From National Book Award–winning author Martin Marty, the surprising story of a Christian classic born in a Nazi prison cell

For fascination, influence, inspiration, and controversy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison is unmatched by any other book of Christian reflection written in the twentieth century. A Lutheran pastor and theologian, Bonhoeffer spent two years in Nazi prisons before being executed at age thirty-nine, just a month before the German surrender, for his role in the plot to kill Hitler. The posthumous Letters and Papers from Prison has had a tremendous impact on both Christian and secular thought since it was first published in 1951, and has helped establish Bonhoeffer's reputation as one of the most important Protestant thinkers of the twentieth century. In this, the first history of the book's remarkable global career, National Book Award-winning author Martin Marty tells how and why Letters and Papers from Prison has been read and used in such dramatically different ways, from the cold war to today.

In his late letters, Bonhoeffer raised tantalizing questions about the role of Christianity and the church in an increasingly secular world. Marty tells the story of how, in the 1960s and the following decades, these provocative ideas stirred a wide range of thinkers and activists, including civil rights and antiapartheid campaigners, "death-of-God" theologians, and East German Marxists.

In the process of tracing the eventful and contested history of Bonhoeffer's book, Marty provides a compelling new perspective on religious and secular life in the postwar era.

Contents

• 12582584_01_Marty_DietrichBonhoeffer_Ch01_130_2P: 1
• 12582584_01A_Marty_DietrichBonhoeffer_Figures 14_2P: 30
• 12582584_02_Marty_DietrichBonhoeffer_Ch02 3150_2P: 31
• 12582584_03_Marty_DietrichBonhoeffer_Ch03 5173_2P: 51
• 12582584_04_Marty_DietrichBonhoeffer_Ch04 74102_2P: 74
• 12582584_05_Marty_DietrichBonhoeffer_Ch05 103132_2P: 103
• 12582584_06_Marty_DietrichBonhoeffer_Ch06 133177_2P: 133
• 12582584_07_Marty_DietrichBonhoeffer_Ch07 178210_2P: 178
• 12582584_08_Marty_DietrichBonhoeffer_Ch08 211246_2P: 211
• 12582584_09_Marty_DietrichBonhoeffer_Notes 247260_2P: 247
• 12582584_10_Marty_DietrichBonhoeffer_Index 261276_2P: 261

About the author

Martin E. Marty (1928–2025) was professor emeritus of religious history at the University of Chicago. He was the winner of the National Book Award and the author of more than fifty books, including Martin Luther: A Life and The Christian World: A Global History.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison: A Biography; Lives of Great Religious Books
• Author: Martin E. Marty
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2020
• ISBN: 0691202486, 9780691202488
• Length: 296 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / General; History / Modern / 20th Century / General; Religion / Christian Theology / General; Religion / Christianity / History