Rating: 
Summary: A Penetrating and Artful Book
Review: This is a first-rate biography of the sainted Thomas More. Ackroyd's goals in this biography are to present a non-anachronistic depiction of More, and through his portrait of More, to give readers a sense of the late Medieval world destroyed by the Reformation and the emergence of nation-states. Ackroyd presents More as a man exemplifying the late Medieval ethos. Deeply religous, highly intelligent, and well educated, More existed with a profound sense of human fallibility and saw all aspects of his world as manifestations of a divine order. The world as the body of Christ, a metaphor to which Ackroyd returns repeatedly, is a recurring theme. The temporal world is transient and a necessary preparation for the eternal and in a crucial sense, less real than the eternal world of Christian teachings. This world is bound by custom and inherited legal and religous traditions, hierarchial and paternalistic in its structure of authority, and deeply enmeshed in rituals that mirror the structure of divine authority. More was not, however, a reactionary except when the radicalism of the Lutherans pushed him to stringent and violent acts needed to defend the integrity of his perception of the Christian world. A prominent member of the Northern European Humanist movement, More was dedicated to the recovery of a renovated faith based on a new reading of the Patristic fathers, attention to classical, particularly Greek neoplatonic authors, and disdain for complex scholastic theology. He and his fellow Humanists hoped for reformation of the Church without abandoning the unity of Christendom, the apparatus of ritual and hierarchy that defined so much of their lives, and the primacy of papal authority. Ackroyd's efforts to present More and the late medieval ethos are very successful. Readers will be introduced to a foreign world, but one which is an ancestor of our contemporary society. Ackroyd's efforts at depicting the lost of world of More include not only the content but the structure of the book. Some prior reviewers commented adversely on Ackroyd's use of unmodified quotations from More's English writings. While interpreting these lines requires a little effort, that effort helps to appreciate More's style. As Ackroyd points out, for More and his contemporaries, style was not simply a matter of presentation but had a significant moral dimension. While chronologically arranged, this biography is not strictly a narrative of More's life. Each chapter is presented as an almost self contained vignette or episode from More's life. I believe this is a deliberate effort on Ackroyd's part to mimic aspects of medieval ritual and theater. This is another and I think successful effort on the part of Ackroyd to present the late Medieval world. Ackroyd argues that not only that More was dedicated to the importance of ritual and theater but that it formed a very important part of More's character and perhaps self-image. Ackroyd's construction of this book is then a doubly artful device to mirror both the world of late medieval England and More himself.
Rating:
Summary: If you will only read one biography of Thomas More...
Review: This is the biography to read of Thomas More if you only have the motivation to read one. It is even handed and well-written.
Rating:
Summary: If you will only read one biography of Thomas More...
Review: This is the biography to read of Thomas More if you only have the motivation to read one. It is even handed and well-written.
Rating: 
Summary: The layman's saint
Review: This was a very difficult book for me to read for the first 100 pages or so. The remainder of the book was almost spellbinding, as this man gave up everything without looking back. Peter Ackroyd has presented a man who is real and is not afraid to standup for his convictions although all his contemporaries including his family do not understand.
Rating:
Summary: A well researched book, worthy of anyone's time.
Review: Truly, an interesting and informative book about the life of a man who put his conscience and belief in the Catholic Church above political expediency and in the end, his own life. For those who deem it noble to "fall on the sword", this is an inspirational book.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book But Disappointing Discoveries
Review: While the merits of this book seem substantial, it was a disappointment for me to the extent that the life of Thomas More himself turned out being a disappointment for me. While I can appreciate, as Francis Bacon said, that "It is as rigid and hard a thing to become a true politician as a true moralist," I can also appreciate, as Pat Moynihan says, that "The 'science of politics' can make the demands of virtue bearable but can never substitute for them." "More...shows a practicality and efficiency which were so much part of his life in the world; he is...caught...telling what he called 'small lies' in order to expedite his affairs." "Erasmus was in need of funds, as always, and discussed with More the possibility of accepting the canonry of Tournai, which had recently been captured from the French....More suggested that a letter be written to Wolsey explaining that the post had previously been conferred upon Erasmus and that, in recompense for the Dutchman withdrawing from it, a greater and better provision should be made for him. None of this was true, of course, but More's wiliness suggests how difficult and tricky he could be; as he admitted himself, on occasions he did not shrink from 'mendaciolum' or a small lie." "He even went to the length of lying to the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Warham, by claiming that Utopia had been printed without his knowledge; since he had sent the manuscript to Erasmus, and worried anxiously over the plans for publication, it was a bold fabrication." "...More was always interested in practice..., rather than theory...". "More as a lawyer is the apotheosis of the clever and practical man....In More it was accompanied by a consistent doubleness or ambiguity of mind.....He was always precise and shrewd, but there is a suspicion at times that he was playing some kind of game. His son-in-law remarked that More never showed 'of what mind himself was therein'. Here, then, are the makings of a perfect lawyer - skilful [sic] yet detached, cautious as well as theatrical, persuasive and practical in equal measure." "...More was a skilful [sic] lawyer who, as Erasmus once said, could defend cases which were not the best. There is an intimation here that Erasmus did not necessarily approve of all More's public activities, and thought he was somehow betraying his gifts by working as a lawyer...". "More...obeyed the orders of his superiors as a 'bounden duty,'" exhibited no scruples about prosecuting people for owning banned books, and, like most of his contemporaries, approved of burning people. In fairness to More, though, "he was the first Englishman seriously to consider the education of women, whom he considered not a jot less intelligent or scholarly than men." And "in linguistic terms, he is a great innovator. Some of the words and phrases he introduced into written English include 'fact', 'taunt', 'shuffle', 'anticipate', 'paradox', 'pretext', 'obstruction', 'monosyllable', 'meeting', 'not to see the wood for the trees', and 'to make the best of something'."
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