No comments about One Man's Justice: A Life in the Law.

No comments about My Life and an Era: The Autobiography Buck Colbert Franklin.

2 comments about The Senator and the Runaway Teenager in the Great Depression.

1. Having thoroughly enjoyed Edwards' first autobiographical book, we were pleased to learn there was a sequel. This proved even more interesting than the first. It was fun to read, with the kind of adventures few young people would experience today, and each teaching a useful lesson for living a moral life.



2. It was indeed an outstanding surprise to read the powerful and charming biographical books written by Duval Edwards: "The Great Depression" and "The Senator and the Runaway Teenager". Here you have an exemplary life: a fighting soul, a hard-working boy, a lawyer, a soldier, and a father. These are the role models that America needs, not the phony material that the media presents as examples to our youth. Duval Edwards represents the best that America has to offer to the world - a poor young man, coming out of poverty through hard work, stamina, ingenuity, and good use of the mind.

   My feeling is that these two books (which, by the way, make very easy and pleasant reading) should be in the Must Read list in every intermediate and high school in the country. They are extremely inspirational. Thanks Duval.

   Raul Bravo, Professor of Mathematics

No comments about La Linea Del Horizonte/ Horizon's Line.

No comments about Lord Atkin.

2 comments about Whittaker: Struggles of a Supreme Court Justice (Contributions in Legal Studies).

1. I was fooled into thinking this was a serious biography of Whittaker-- it truly is not. The author is an "independent scholar" who apparently has some sort of bizarre political agenda which colors this work-- most of the book is devoted to exceedingly tendentious criticism of Whittaker, which frustrates any real attempt to understand Whittaker or even describe his life in a minimally coherent way. The book is remarkable in that it contains almost no biographical information of any interest, but is devoted to tendentious criticisms of Whittaker's opinions, writings, and speeches. Miller's analysis is wacky and totally off-point, informed mostly by the political views of a man writing a 40 years after Whittaker's departure from the Supreme Court, and contains no insight at all. This book can hardly even be called a "biography" because it contains no real attempt to describe Whittaker's life at all. Miller frequently speculates about what Whittaker "must" have been like or how he "must" have seemed to others, but his research falls far below what we should expect for any serious work. I would expect work of better quality from a high school student-- this book is that bad. This is a good example of how you can't judge a book by its cover-- the publisher of this book decided to present this as a serious biographical sketch. In fact, this is a incompetent, ignorant, and self-absorbed work by a hack author.



2. It is obvious from the outset that the author does not like his subject. This is one of the two biographies on Justice Whittaker currently available and they could not be two more different books in their approaches. While Craig Alan Smith in his "Failing Justice" [also reviewed on Amazon] wants to defend Whittaker, Richard Lawrence Miller takes every opportunity to take a poke at the Justice--no benefit of the doubt in evidence here. A lot of this animus appears to stem from Whittaker's close relationship with the University of Kansas City and its trustees (see the dedication to the book). Whatever the genesis, Miller wants to emphasize Whittaker's big firm background, his highly-successful private practice for business interests, his lack of enthusiasm for labor unions, and his generally conservative outlook. For Miller, Whittaker's major fault on the Supreme Court was his strict adherence to precedent and his lack of passion. More so than Smith, Miller focuses upon controversial decisions made by Whittaker while a district judge, on the Eighth Circuit, and while on the Supreme Court. The result is to suggest that Whittaker was fixated on the "Communist menace" of the 1950's, less than enthusiastic about protecting free speech, and not supportive of civil disobedience. Miller does have one advantage over Smith: he really examines the post-Court period of Whittaker during which the retired Justice made some highly controversial remarks about Martin Luther King, the civil rights movement, and unions. I found this chapter highly interesting and helpful in coming to grips with Whittaker. While not the book to read on Whittaker if you can only read one, the combination of the two together really helps fill out the reader's grasp of Whittaker, his strengths, weaknesses, and role on the Court.

No comments about Horace T. Ward: Desegregation of the University of Georgia, Civil Rights Advocacy and Jurisprudence.

5 comments about The Life of Thomas More.

1. I enjoyed this book, but I do think that as a narrative history it is perhaps slightly flawed. The main strength (and problem) I have with this book is that the character study is so dominant that is completely ignores the larger historical picture that More lived within and, at times the dominant philosophy, that may have allowed a deeper understanding of More.
   
   The gnawing problem I have with this book is the main currents that More struggled against and the ideas he fought for are little outlined. The church that he so selflessly defended is little described beyond its social context in which More was raised. The central point of More was that the sublimation of the time honoured traditions (though admittedly flawed) could not be merely circumvented by mans personal appeal to God. Direct dialougue with God allowed a virtual pandora's box of interpretation and clash of beliefs that could only lead to mass bloodshed --- and he was right! This belief is left unexplored and the historical events, such as the peasants revolt in Germany that More abhored and used in his polemical tracts against Luther (a thoroughly scatologically unsavoury character) is not described. In addition Charles V sack of Rome and its influence on the relations with Henry VII are not considered relevant.
   
   So I feel dissatified because I am not getting a wide historical narrative. Although I understand the texture of the stones that he worshipped upon and the feel of the robes he wore, I have little feeling of the times that surrounded him. For the first-time reader of More, this may appear disconcerting.
   
   I realise that my critique cuts another way: if Ackroyd did write the larger historical narrative I wanted, he may have digressed into the narrative historical self-abuse of the 1000 page biography (only acceptable in the most exceptional of circumstances).
   
   I also get no sense of a building dennoument in the encounter with Henry. There is a annoying blase telling of the story with some bright moments -- the book gets better as one goes through it -- it is dense and quite frankly, a little boring in the beginning.
   
   ALso the Olde Englysh translations do detract from the flow of the narrative. Although it is easily understood ones reading flow slows from 700 words per minute, to 50 words per minute in the old English translations. He should revise it from the 16th Century vernacular to modern spelling.
   
   In final analysis I feel that I really did not understand the man. I feel that I need to get a hold of a better biography of the man. So if Ackroyd succeeded in doing this, then it was worth the read.



2. Gosh, golly gee, crikey - the superlatives could go on all day. This is a superb, densely textured biography. Ackroyd revels in the complex psychology and sociology of his subject, e.g., his devotion to duty, his father fixation, etc. He also places Thomas More firmly in the London of his time and in his historical moment - the Reformation - especially through More's own writings.
   
   It has been remarked that the chapters amount to a series of vignettes. That's true, and the amount of knowledge retailed in each glimpse of More and his world is staggering.
   
   To give but a few examples:
   Chap. 3 - St. Anthony's Pigs: we follow young More through the streets of Tudor London to his school and get insight into the Renaissance education system.
   
   Ch 4 - Cough Not, Nor Spit: Thomas' early career as a page to Archbishop (of Canterbury) Morton, Henry VII's notorious "enforcer". This relationship illuminates More's later dealings with Cardinal Wolsey.
   
   Ch 8 - We Talk Of Letters: sketches of Grocyn, Linacre, Lily, Colet, More - the "London humanists", or More's intellectual circle.
   
   And so on. The book continues in the same fascinating vein. It is a hard slog to read, and I'm sorry that Peter Ackroyd did not give a glossary of A) Latin and Greek expressions, and B) even some of his more obscure English words. I also regret that there's no map to illustrate Ackroyd's loving depiction of the London where More learned, lived, worked and suffered.
   
   More's story is well known and often told. Ackroyd has given a fully-rounded portrayal of the man, his background, career, family and friends.
   
   What a pleasure to read.



3. The moment I finished Peter Ackroyd's "Life of Thomas More," my strongest impulse was to close it, open it up to the first page again, and start -- immediately -- reading it all over again, word by word, page by page.
   
   I hung on every word of this text. I wanted to understand Thomas More.
   
   I wanted to understand a man whose misogyny was obvious in his many derogatory statements about women. For example, when asked why he liked short women, he said that it was best to choose the lesser of evils.
   
   When a mature man, More married a mere girl and got her pregnant so many times in such rapid succession that she lived only a few short years after marrying him.
   
   More married his second wife, as the saying goes, while still in mourning clothes for his first. He mocked that second wife, Dame Alice, publicly. He wrote texts that associated women exclusively with sex and disgusting bodily functions like vomiting and diarrhea.
   
   And, yet, More was exceptional for his time in educating his beloved daughter, the one great passion of his life, Margaret More Roper.
   
   More persecuted his countrymen who deviated from the Catholic faith, and published vile condemnations of Luther, and eventually, knowingly, and humbly, sacrificed his own life to his own interpretation of that faith.
   
   More rose, through obediance, flattery, and dogged labor, from relatively humble circumstances to being Henry the VIII's chancellor, and a wealthy man, and then tossed away his considerable worldly goods and power to die an ignominious death.
   
   You want to understand a man who could encompass so many passionate apparent contradictions.
   
   And, so, I hung on every word of Ackroyd's detailed and yet economical text.
   
   My attention was amply rewarded. Ackroyd marshalls the kind of authentic, telling details of the Medieval life that More lived that can make an era, and its inhabitants, come alive. Even so, Ackroyd is never wordy. When he has said enough, he simply stops.
   
   Along the way, Ackroyd brings to light the life and impact of a woman he says has been nearly forgotten: Elizabeth Barton, a seeress and nun in Kent. Barton spoke against Henry VIII's divorce of his wife, Catherine of Aragon.
   
   Her voice was considered so important that Henry himself visited her.
   
   For her trouble, Barton and her priestly followers were tortured to death.
   
   As I read, I could not help but reflect: in our own age of "celebrity," we know too many details about non-entities we don't care about at all -- the Britney Spears and Paris Hiltons enjoying their fifteen minutes of fame. We can view film footage of their most intimate moments on the internet; hear their every thought in televised interviews.
   
   Thomas More lived five hundred years ago. We can't ask him to reconcile for us his hateful diatribes against women and his love of Margaret, his ant-like accumulation of worldly goods and his sacrifice for his beliefs.
   
   The records just don't exist.
   
   And, yet ... even though the More in these pages has to remain something of a cypher, even though More, as was the norm in his time, wrote with extreme caution in ambiguous, tradition-bound, unspontaneous and sometimes flowery prose, I felt I had an encounter, through Ackroyd's book, with a remarkable human being. I was in tears throughout the final passages leading up to More's death.
   
   A final word: I am a fan of "A Man for all Seasons." Again and again, reviewers pit Ackroyd's book against the Robert Bolt play and subsequent movie.
   
   One does not necessarily cancel out the other...both the film and this book work, for me, from what I know about More, as explorations of his life and impact, and his famous final choice.
   
   I never saw Paul Scofield's More as a Thoreau-like figure, as some reviewers have said; he was not depicted as living in a house in the woods, after all, and he did base his decision on adherence to a greater principle than personal conscience, i.e., the law, just as Ackroyd's More does.
   
   So, yes, do see the movie, and do read this book.



4. Thomas More lived an exemplary life during hard times. His faith in the Catholic Church was put to the test by his king, and though he failed his king and paid the price on the scaffold, he served his God and was rewarded with martyrdom and sainthood. Peter Ackroyd's book is a brilliant and dramatic telling of More's life.
   
   Thomas More was born in London in 1478. He was educated at Oxford where upon his father's insistence he studied law. But he was also interested in theology and thought for a while of becoming a monk. Famously he wore a hair shirt his entire life. Instead of taking vows, however, he took a wife and had four children. He made sure his daughters received as rigorous an education as his sons. (His wife died in 1511 and he married Alice Middleton and adopted her daughter.)
   
   The law was More's lifelong profession where he represented various groups in the courts and helped settle trade disputes abroad. He wrote a history of King Richard III, wherein he portrayed Richard as a cruel, even criminal, ruler. In 1516, he published his most famous book, UTOPIA, which described an ideal community governed totally by reason. When Cardinal Wolsey failed to secure an annulment of Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, he was replaced by More as lord chancellor. He worked diligently in this position and became a friend to the king. But troubles were already visible in the horizon.
   
   When Henry, through the Act of Supremacy, declared himself the head of the Church of England, More was in opposition to him: he refused to take an oath of allegiance to Henry that would deny papal supremacy of the church. He was tried, found guilty, and beheaded five days later.
   
   Ackroyd is especially good in relating the dramatic events during these last few years in More's life. He narrates this with the power and skill of a novelist; indeed, it's almost impossible to put the book down during the last 100 pages. Anyone in want of moral uplift need only read these last pages for complete satisfaction. More went to the scaffold bravely, even telling the executioner to stay calm and aim true. He joked after stumbling on the scaffold steps and received help: "When I come down again let me shift for myself as well as I can." Then "he died the King's good servant but God's first," which is his life in a nutshell. Ackroyd writes with authority and tremendous style, but it's the drama that he infuses in his account that truly sets this book apart. Highly recommended.



5. Sir Thomas More was a Londoner from birth. He was born in 1478 in the last flowering of the late Middle Ages Roman Catholic world of that distant day. More was a brilliant student who studied at Oxford and at the law courts of Lincoln Inn. More rose high and became Lord Chancellor of England under Henry VIII. All was well with Sir Thomas as he served King and Country as lawyer, judge, diplomat, Steward of Oxford and Cambridge, pious Christian layperson and author. His book "Utopia" has become a deserved classic of satire.
   More was a humanist who was friendly with great men such as Erasmus who often visited him in his estate in Sussex. More was twice married to Jane Colt who died at 22 and the widow Alice Middleton who was witty, wealth and wise. More had a quick wit, deep love of God and strong belief in the
   beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church. More had several children by his first wife. His daughter Margaret was considered to be the smartest woman in England being proficient in Latin, Greek and the classics. All of his children loved him. More indulged in scatological jokes; had countless pets and viewed life as a grand drama with him as an actor upon the stage of affairs.
   On becoming Lord Chancellor after the fall of Cardinal Wolsey he was zealous in the persecution and burning of reformers and Protestant. More opposed the English translation of the Bible by William Tyndale. He could be cruel and was a bitter enemy of anyone who opposed the Church. Like most people of the age he was superstitious believing firmly in ghosts, omens in dreams and the literal interpretation of the Bible. More called for reform in the existing church but believed everyone should obey the Pope in Rome as a father is obeyed in the well ordered home. He would not brook breaking away from Roman Catholicism.
   More was beheaded in July 1535 and his property was attained due to his refusal to subscribe to the marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. More believed Henry's marriage to his first wife Catherine of Aragon was valid. He believed that by marrying Anne the King of England was not in obedience to God's law. More believed the church should be governed from Rome rather than be ruled by the King of England. He hated Martin Luther condemning him to hell. More was inimical to the Protestant Reformation. His faith was in the old church which had governed Western religion for a millenium.
   My feelings towards More are mixed. I do not like his persecution of heretics but one most concede that he was a product of the cruel times in which he lived. I do admire his courage in dying rather than sacrifice his belief in what is right to do as God gave him the light to discern that right. More has been sainted by the Roman Catholic Church.
   Peter Ackroyd is the author of this 400 pages book making it much shorter than the definite biography of Sir Thomas by Richard Marius. Ackroyd portrays More warts and all giving a balanced view of the controversial man's life and times. More and his contemporaries are often quoted using the English of the period. This may prove annoying to many readers who prefer to read about him in a standard English format. This is a fine biography by one of England's best biographers.

No comments about No Justice, No Peace.

No comments about Hermann J. Held (1890-1963) (Rechtshistorische Reihe,).