Customer Reviews

Erasmus of the Low Countries

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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A book written by a man who has become very well aquainted with the subject matter. He allows the facts to present the subject with little fanfare or extra fluff. The bad is presented along with the good, and with praise when praise is warranted, and with no apologies when other authors have made excuses. All within the context of the times.

This book is excellent for gaining a cursory understanding of Erasmus, some of his works ,and various elements that helped him develop his ideas. Tracy has done a good job of trying to walk the middle ground and has done an admirable job of laying the details down without trying to interpret them too much. An excellent starting point for those who wish to study Erasmus.

I am writing this review principally to negate the previous reviewer who said that this book's merit consists in giving a "cursory" understanding of Erasmus. Pity the scholar who receives praise like that. It is especially unfair and, let me say stupid, in this book's case. First, it is very difficult to summarize any complicated historical subject well and accurately. Second, in this specific case the issues that concerned Erasmus his whole life are so easily confused with the great events of history -- The Reformation -- that his peculiar qualities are scarcely understood most of the time. I have read quite a few books on Erasmus, but not until I read this one did I feel I had a grasp on his unique position in the process of Western intellectual history. So, while I can imagine this book being a good introduction, it is clearly simply wrong to imply that is all it is. It is a masterful piece of precise scholarly focus on an individual and ideas that are are still very misunderstood in our culture. This misunderstanding is a great to the detriment of our culture. Therefore, in my view, this is a culturally crucial book.

Tracy states clearly that his aim in this work is to show Erasmus's efforts to reform the Church through a reformation of the *doctrina* of the day. Thus this book is less of a personal biography, offering instead a well-developed picture of Erasmus as a thinker within the various currents in the 16th century Church. Tracy also provides an interested analysis of the classical and Patristic sources that formed the Rotterdam humanist's own doctrina--so there are some nice passages exploring the influence of Augustine, Origen, and, of course, Jerome.
This book is well written, and--with the exception of the unavoidable profusion of difficult Eastern-European names and the occasional meticulously detailed account of some minor court or other's political maneuvering--it offers a very nice introduction to the mind of Erasmus alongside the mind of the age... and that without neglecting to give the reader a sense of familiarity with the man himself.