John Calvin: A Sixteenth-Century Portrait - Hardcover

Bouwsma, William J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195043944 ISBN 13: 9780195043945

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1987

Synopsis

Calvinism has been widely credited--or blamed--for much that is thought to characterize the modern world: for capitalism and modern science, for secularization and democracy, for individualism and utilitarianism. But John Calvin the man has been largely ignored by historians; most of us, if we think of him at all, tend to view him as little more than the joyless tyrant of Geneva and the source of an abstract theology as forbidding as its author. This book, by an eminent historian whose career has been devoted to understanding the larger patterns of early modern European history, aims to make Calvin come alive by putting him back in his own time and understanding how he dealt with its problems.
A Frenchman, an exile, and a humanist in the tradition of Erasmus, Calvin was unusually sensitive to the complexities and contradictions of later Renaissance culture. The Calvin who emerges from this eloquent study is a surprisingly human, more plausible, more ecumenical, and often sympathetic figure, whose achievement was both more and less than -- and at the same time quite different from -- the way it has commonly been portrayed. The result is a brilliant interpretation not only of Calvin but also of the Reformation and its relationship to the movements of the Renaissance.

About this title

About the Author:

About the author:
William J. Bouwsma is Sather Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. One of the foremost American scholars of the Renaissance and Reformation, he is also the author of Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty: Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter-Reformation, acclaimed by The Historian as "marvelously rich" and by Renaissance Quarterly as "among the handful of the most significant studies of the history of ideas produced in the 1960s."

Review:

"W.Bouwsma's John Calvin offers an excellent view inside the life and the times of one of histories most complex and intriguing minds. An excellent resource for intellectual, religious, and cultural historians; first rate."--James LeSueur, University of LaVerne "A wonderful book. Brings fresh
insights not only to our understanding of Calvin's life, but also to our understanding of the intellectual climate of early modern Europe."--David Koeller, Phillips University

"At last someone has rescued the great reformer of Geneva from the stony grayness to which he had been so wrongly consigned and has drawn an animated picture of a passionate and complex man."--Harvey Cox, Harvard Divinity School

"A fresh and insightful exploration of John Calvin's thought, viewed within the context of sixteenth-century intellectual, psychological, cultural, and religious forces."--Dave Rightmire, Asbury College

"This is must reading for anyone interested in the Reformation period as a whole or Calvin in particular. All future studies on Calvin should interact with this work."--Trinity Journal

"By intense reading in Calvin's work [Bouwsma] has come up with a twentieth-century psychological scheme, giving a genuinely new insight into the man and into the sixteenth century as a whole."--The New York Times Book Review

"A richly wise, and splendidly engaging portrayal of a man whose doctrines and aspirations--and whose anxieties and fears--shaped, and perhaps are still shaping, the modern world."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

"An intellectual tour de force. We will never be able to think of Calvin the man in the same way again."--St. Petersburg Times

"An impressive contribution to our understanding of Calvin and our understanding of ourselves from one who is thoroughly acquainted with Calvin's Institutes, commentaries, sermons, treatises, and letters."--Eternity

"A study that Calvin scholars have been waiting for....It provides a 'disclosure model' of Calvin's personality and his work that will fertilize future studies....A booming success."--Sixteenth Century Journal

"A clear and brilliantly argued analysis of Calvin's place in sixteenth-century European intellectual history, focusing on his thought rather than his life."--Library Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0195043944
• ISBN 13: 9780195043945
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320