While recent scholarship has highlighted the complexity of early modern European perceptions of Islam, an analysis of Reformation-era publications supports these findings and helps us understand the ambiguous and transitional character of this period in Christian-Islamic relations and the role of these sources in reflecting and shaping culture (187). In The Turks and Islam in Reformation Germany, Gregory J. Miller offers a survey of the scholarship and a summary of views on the Turks and Islam from literature produced in German-speaking lands during the first decades of the sixteenth century. The author analyzes accounts by former slaves of the Turks, such as George of Hungary's Tractatus de Moribus Turcorum (ca. 1480) and Bartholomew Georgijevic's De Aflictione tam Captivorum Quam etiam sub Turcae Tributo Viventium Christianorum and De Turcarum Ritu et Caeremoniis (both 1544). Lengthy translations from the accounts are found in appendixes 2 and 3, while appendix 1 includes Martin Luther's and Philip Melanchthon's 1544 letter in support of Bartholomew Georgijevic.

Chapter 1 discusses the importance of captivity accounts as sources of “extensive” information for Reformation-era Germans with an enormous power to shape Western views of Islam (1). Miller explains the structure of the book and recognizes the “Post-Said” scholarly contributions by Thomas Burman, Charlotte Colding, and Margaret Meserve (8). Chapter 2 exposes the ignorance of late medieval European views of Islam, including the Crusade as a persistent paradigmatic response to it (23). Chapter 3 explains the political situation that favored the expansion of the Ottoman Empire from Asia Minor to the Balkans, Asia, and Africa. It also offers information on the military conflicts during the lifetime of Mehmet the Conqueror, Suleyman the Magnificent, and Charles V.

In chapter 4, Miller presents the views of Martin Luther and other Reformers and Catholics regarding the Qur'an, Muhammad, and Islamic spirituality and rituals. While the Catholic Church maintained a medieval view of Islam, Luther's harsher eschatological engagement with Islamic theology was comparative, in order to help Christians endure the troubles of the last days or survive Turkish captivity (49–50). As Luther and his contemporaries scrutinized Islam, this marked an important stage in the reification of the concept of religion, as Almut Öffert argues, and as Miller supports, and in the birth of comparative religion, as Peter Harrison observes (48–49).

Chapter 5 informs us of the Reformation's interest in the Turks as a cultural and ethnic unit. Sixteenth-century Germans were curious about their spiritual adversary's origins, character, society, and government. They avidly collected general histories and wrote a brief, plain account of the twelve sultans up to Suleyman the Magnificent (78–79). Chapter 6 addresses the German fear of the Turks and its causes. Luther believed that the Turks were God's punishment for Christian sins and a wake-up call to repentance, although both sides blamed each other for God's wrath (105). While Catholics placed their hope in a Holy Roman emperor, Luther believed that only God could punish the Turks in a final apocalyptic battle. Chapter 7 is dedicated to the development of Luther's concept of missionary work and conversion efforts of Christian captives among Muslims (124–25). Luther thought the Crusade was “a blasphemous confusion of the earthly and heavenly kingdoms,” in which Christians should not participate (133). “Just war,” however, was a duty for legitimate rulers to “defend society against the Turks, just as they would from ‘domestic criminals’” (135). In chapter 8, Miller comparatively analyzes the popular narratives by George of Hungary and Bartholomew Georgijevic, drawing parallels between their structure and content, while expressing his reservations about Georgijevic's story, which was dedicated to Charles V (158). Chapter 9 discusses the transformations of the image of Islam in the early modern West and the reasons behind such transformations, such as the Reformation, the constant contact with the Turks, and the advent of the printing press.

The Turks and Islam in Reformation Germany summarizes scholarship and exposes sixteenth-century views on this topic, adding to existing arguments. The book would have benefited from recent scholarship on Venetian-Ottoman relations or Venetian news reports, which Miller mentions but does not utilize. The names of some historical figures are misspelled, such as that of Scanderbeg (written as Scanderberg), which is the combination of the Turkish name Scander and the title Bey. In addition, his first name, Gjergj, is incorrectly given as Gjon, which is the name of his father. Finally, Mehmet the Conqueror is commonly known as Mehmet II and not as Muhammad II. Despite these small inaccuracies, the book is informative and will help students and general readers who are passionate about early modern religious history.