A readable overview that demonstrates Luther’s wide-ranging impact on the world, then and now.
A new look at one of Christian history’s most pivotal characters.
Because Luther’s life story contains many intriguing elements—political intrigue, accusations of heresy, life and death drama—it’s no surprise that biographer and novelist Wilson (Charlemagne, 2006, etc.) was drawn to a subject that has already been covered many times before. The author begins with a specific purpose: “to provide the non-specialist reader with an account…of Martin Luther, warts and all, and an assessment of his impact on his own time and subsequent ages.” He succeeds in providing a biography accessible to general readers, effectively assessing Luther’s legacy while noting that it is difficult to approach his life without taking sides. Wilson berates “agnostic historians who attempt to hover impartially above the field of conflict,” pointing out that Luther and his contemporaries cannot be understood without an appreciation for the weight of their beliefs upon everyday life. Still, many Catholics will cringe at Wilson’s approach to the Roman Catholic Church, even when there is justification: “[Johann Tetzel’s] sermon was the sales pitch of a disreputable insurance rep peddling heavenly policies.” Wilson acknowledges Luther’s many flaws, but also shows how the Renaissance man helped change perceptions about a diverse variety of subjects, including the biblical interpretation, German nationalism, anti-Semitism and more. Despite his somewhat partisan approach, Wilson offers a solid complement to such resources as Heiko A. Oberman’s Luther: Man Between God and the Devil (1990), and also serves as an excellent introduction to many of the other important figures of the era, from Erasmus to Zwingli.
A readable overview that demonstrates Luther’s wide-ranging impact on the world, then and now.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-37588-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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