Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
How well do you think you know Thomas More?, 4 April 2001
By A Customer
Professor Guy's book seeks to uncover the real Thomas More, in the words of another famous historian, to get to the man inside the plaster statue. This is not a biography in the true sense of the word, but is an investigation, showing us how little we really do know about this man, and how much of what we think we know is simply myth. If you've got any preconceived ideas as to what Thomas More was like, based on the film 'A Man for All Seasons' then this book will shatter your illusions. This book takes the key issues of More's life, turning them into questions, each one forming a chapter of the book. Examples are: 'Reluctant Courtier?', 'Heresy Hunter?', and 'Whose conscience?'. Guy is highly critical of the evidence, doing almost the job of a detective, seeking to get as close to the truth as possible. This book appealed to me immensely, as rather than being a 'story' of More's life, it is above all, an investigation. It is very readable, and I read it initially knowing very little about More, so you don't have to be an expert to enjoy it, yet on the other hand, it will also appeal to serious scholars, due to the critical analysis it provides. It certainly made me think, and prompted me to investigate certain issues in more depth. Rather than just telling us what we know about More, it tells us what we don't know - and suggests that a definitive biography on More will never be written. As is always the case when studying Thomas More, far more questions are raised than are answered.
|
|
|
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
First master of P.R.?, 30 April 2006
The reputations series examines the lives of controverted historical figures. More certainly qualities. if you are Roman Catholic, here is a saint, a martyr for the church abandoned by Henry VIII because of his lust. if you are Protestant more is a man who delighted to persecute Protestants with torture and the stake.
Guy believes More was one of the first masters of public relations leaving a legacy of writing to show himself as the king's good servant but God's servant first. He thinks that more never uttered these famous words and that Bolt's film, A Man for All Seasons did not do justice to a sometimes wintery character.
By the standards of his Catholic age, More was a very religious, virtuous man . The church for which he died has recognised this with sainthood. But 15th century Catholic virtue included book burning, hunting heretics, brutal interrogation, and death at the stake. More's Utopia described a tolerance and freedom which he did not live out.
A brilliant lawyer who became Lord Chancellor, a skillful politician who kept his opposition to Henry's divorce a private matter between him and the king, his conscience bound to the Roman church, he lived and died well for his beliefs. A Renaissance scholar and friend of Erasmus, histories of him are divided between the Catholic admirers and Protestant critics. Guy believes it is difficult to get to the real More but he makes a scholarly attempt to do so.
Not a riveting read but informative. It confirms my judgment that A Man for All Seasons and the Sound of Music are two wonderful pieces of Roman Catholic propaganda.
|
|
|
1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
"A daring book"? Hardly..., 31 Aug 2004
The most interesting thing about this reassessment of More is the discrepancy between the jacket blurb and the contents. It says on the back:
'This is a daring book... Those who are wholly satisfied by an idealized vision of More as the epitome of "a man of singular virtue", "the King's good servant but God's first", should not read this book.'
Whether or not this bit of nonsense originated with the author or with someone at Arnold, the fact is it's hilarious because these verdicts are precisely what Guy confirms after sifting through the various aspects of More's life. Of course More was not unflawed but he came extraordinarily near to living according to his values and beliefs. Surrounded by the trimmers at Henry's court (many of whom ended their lives on Tower Hill anyway) More shines like a beacon of rectitude. Guy, who knows the sources inside out, can find hardly anything to say that works contrary to More's reputation, although he constantly asserts that he is doing so!As a study of More it's not bad but the lack of a narrative spine or of anything genuinely new to say makes it somewhat lame. Read the Ackroyd biography to really get to know More: pace Guy, he was no enigma, but a formidably learned, talented, good-natured and, let's admit it, virtuous man. Norman Housley
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
by Peter Ackroyd
by John Guy
