ABSTRACT
This introduction chapter gives an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book attempts to redress the balance of play by exploring the production and impact of Catholic propaganda. It discusses that Catholic representations were nonetheless more successful in the short term in fostering distrust and hatred of the Protestants. Our modern perception of the Reformation is a tribute to the Protestant skill in rewriting history. The distinctions that were drawn between Protestant and Catholic mentalités are largely arbitrary and flow from the Enlightenment identification of the Reformation with reason and of Catholicism with superstition. Catholic polemic was at once grounded in tradition, drawing from familiar arguments which had been available to previous generations of writers, and contemporary, demonstrating the ability to exploit and respond to every twist and turn of new circumstances and events.
