Average customer rating:
- It may be a children's book, but I learned so much from it!
|
The River of Grace: The Story of John Calvin
Joyce B. McPherson
Manufacturer: Greenleaf Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Renaissance
| Schools, Periods & Styles
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
Religious
| Biographies
| People & Places
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
Renaissance
| History & Historical Fiction
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Religious
| Leaders & Notable People
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Renaissance
| Movements & Periods
| History & Criticism
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Renaissance
| Schools, Periods & Styles
| Art History
| Art
| Arts & Photography
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
Religious
| Leaders & Notable People
| Biographies & Memoirs
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
History & Historical Fiction
| Children's Books
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
| Africa
| Ancient
| Asia
| Canada
| Central & South America
| Europe
| Exploration & Discovery
| Fiction
| General
| Holocaust
| Medieval
| Mexico
| Middle East
| Military & Wars
| Prehistoric
| United States
Religious
| Biographies
| People & Places
| Children's Books
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
Movements & Periods
| History & Criticism
| Literature & Fiction
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
All 4-for-3 Deals
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Man Who Laid the Egg
-
A Piece of the Mountain:The Story of Blaise Pascal
-
Thunderstorm in Church
-
Bible Smuggler
-
The Hawk That Dare Not Hunt by Day
ASIN: 1882514548 |
Book Description
This is the only biography of Calvin available for young people. Joyce focuses on Calvin's childhood and youth, tracing his days at the university and the circumstances of his conversion. She traces his early and precocious leadership of the Protestants in France, and his flight to Basel, Strassburg, and Geneva when King Francis I began executing Protestants. The result is a warm and affectionate picture of the leader of the second generation of the Protestant Reformation. This is a book worth reading out loud to younger students; older students and adults will find it a valuable introduction and aid in understanding the author of the Institutes of the Christian Religion.
Customer Reviews:
It may be a children's book, but I learned so much from it!.......2000-06-20
After reading two of Joyce McPherson's other books, I knew I was in for a treat when I picked up River of Grace, the biography of John Calvin. While the language is easily understandable for a child, it holds the interest of the adult. I have even seen my husband, who rarely picks up a book, reading this one. John Calvin is famous as a theologian, but I found out lots of things that I didn't know about him. It made his life come alive for me.
Book Description
Covers the period in western European history from 1300-1550 and includes chapters on Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Dürer, Erasmus, Wyclif, Hus, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Tyndale and Knox. Includes over 75 b&w images of the men, women and works of art that distinguish this period of history. 29 chapters, 192 pages. Text written for 5th grade and up.
Customer Reviews:
very informative.......2007-01-10
This book is full of great information on men of this time period. It tells you who they were, and what their role in history was. It does a good job of linking the principal players as well, so that you understand who was living and making history at the same time, and what influence they had upon one another.
Interesting way to cover history.......2006-10-13
My children and I really enjoyed this treatment of the Renaissance and Reformation. I recommend all the titles in this series.
NOT a good text for Catholics; contains bias and misinformation.......2006-09-26
I'll admit it - I picked up this text and went immediately to the entries that I thought might be problematic. I didn't have to look far. The entry on Machiavelli is too nuanced for the book's intended audience. The chapter dealing with Luther is erroneous in its treatment of Church doctrine and at times, downright hateful (and at other times, quite silly, as if the whole subject is a joke). I would have to stand over my children's shoulders and correct every other word if they read this. It might prompt an interesting discussion of popular Protestant misconceptions of Catholic teachings, but it doesn't seem to be a suitable textbook for forming children's knowledge of the characters of the historical period.
Where are the women?.......2001-01-11
This is an excellent research tool for high schoolers in history, religion, humanities, art history or world history classes. It is a large, workbook-sized soft cover book. I ordered it for our church library. Illustrations are all in black and white. It was interesting to read as an adult, too, o because it is a good refresher or review of the history of the era. Although each chapter covers a person, the history of the whole book is kept intact. I would recommend it to public school high school teachers for use as a text. However, I have a comment. Where are the WOMEN of the Renaissance and Reformation? What about Catherine de Medici, Katherine von Bora, Joan of Arc, Hildegard von Bingen, and Artimisia Gentileschi, the great female Renaissance painter (check Vasari's Lives of the Painters.) I would like to see women included in any revisions, with the book called, "Famous PEOPLE of the Renaissance and Reformation." Do some digging and don't follow the typical history that men haver written. There is "herstory", too, and it should be researched and brought once again to life. Just because women may not have been as famous as the men, they did wield considerable power and were just as spiritual and talented.
Book Description
This volume deals with the intellectual world of "progressive" Benedictine and Cistercian monks who vicariously represent humanists in cloisters (Klosterhumanismus, Bibelhumanismus) in German speaking lands: Conradus Leontorius (1460-1511), Maulbronn, Benedictus Chelidonius (c.1460-1521), Nuremberg and Vienna, Bolfgangus Marius (1469-1544), Aldersbach in Bavaria, Henricus Urbanus (c. 1470-c.1539), Georgenthal in the region of Gotha and Erfurt, Vitus Bild Acropolitanus (1481-1529), Augsburg, and Nikolaus Ellenbog (1481-1543), Ottobeuren in Swabia.
For the first time in historical-theological research, new insights are provided into the world of the "social group" called Monastic Humanists who emerged next to the better known Civic Humanists within the diverse, international phenomenon of Renaissance humanism which may be considered the main matrix of the Reformation in Germany.
Book Description
A classic work on the 16th century scholar and humanist. In addition to Huizinga's brilliant analysis, this remarkable biography includes 32 illustrations and letters drawn from Erasmus's vast correspondence with the greatest men of his era--those who would catapult Europe into the modern age.
Customer Reviews:
Great historian's perspective of a great thinker.......2004-11-07
Johan Huizinga writes great history. I do not think many contemporary historians can match his prose. He does an excellent job of providing the reader a unique perspective of certain events, and the people involved with them as they unfold.
In this book, Huizinga writes about Erasmus, a man who is arguably one of the great thinkers of the 16th century. I did not know a lot about Erasmus before I read this book, but now feel like I have a much greater understanding about the man, his ideas, and the era in which he lived.
A word of warning about this book - it helps if you have a pretty good understanding of 16th century European history. If you are a novice, like me, you may struggle through some sections. It is well worth the effort though, in the end.
The best thing about Huizinga's book is that you get more than just the history of Erasmus. The author includes a lot of analysis and his perspective into Erasmus' life, which are fascinating.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is familiar with 16th century European history, and wants to learn more about Erasmus. If you are new to this era of history, or do not know much about Erasmus, I would consider reading a more general history before making your way through this book.
"An Intimate Portrait of the Great Erasmus".......2004-02-06
Of all volumes of study which concern the learned scholar Desiderius Erasmus, it must be said, quite simply, that Johan Huizinga's work stands out among the greatest. Huizinga skillfully and colorfully weaves the many aspects of Erasmus' life together into one intimate portrait which places the man respectfully within the setting of his time. In this work, the reader will find that Huizinga always seems to surface the inmost sentiments of Erasmus, even amidst all the triumph, turmoil, and controversy which marked the age he lived in. From Erasmus' early years as an Augustinian canon, to his final days as an accomplished and conscientious scholar, the same underlining genius will be discovered by anyone who comes to grips with this classic work. Huizinga's, Erasmus and the Age of the Reformation, is a work worthy of praise, even eighty years after its first publication. Also, found here are several valuable letters of Erasmus', which display his dutiful correspondence with individuals like St Thomas More and Martin Luther. Any study of Desiderius Erasmus is not complete without Huizinga's timeless masterpiece at hand.
Man in the Middle.......2004-01-04
Of particular value to the reader is the preface of this work, penned in 1952 by the then Provost of Oriel College, Oxford, G.N. Clark. The brief preface introduces not only the work but the author, Johan Huizinga, perhaps as a halting effort at rehabilitation. Clark reminds the readers that Huizinga had suffered through two world wars and was imprisoned by the Nazis, and died in February, 1945, literally days before his beloved Holland was liberated: an apologia of sorts for a most controversial scholar.
Huizinga had shaken the European and American historical and religious establishments with the publication of his most famous work, "The Waning of the Middle Ages," in 1919. In that work Huizinga introduced a novel gestalt for interpreting the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, upsetting historians of his day who still clung to the traditional strictures of epochs, and Churchmen, notably Catholic, for his candor in debunking ecclesiastical mythology of that era. ["The Waning" was actually placed on the Index of Forbidden Books for a time.] Clark argues that the Erasmus text is a companion piece to "The Waning," a useful point to remember in assessing this biography.
For all the energy generated by their respective forces, neither the Renaissance nor the Reformation was particularly rich in seminal philosophical inquiry. In fact, the sixteenth century was in many respects quite conservative, with its veneration of Classical thought, Aristotelian scientific method, and religious interest in primary sources. Erasmus's lifespan, 1466-1536, was an age of application, where orthopraxis was making a run at orthodoxy. Erasmus has always enjoyed reputation as the consummate "Renaissance Man," literary giant, man of letters, humane reformer, diplomat. In this work he is still the preeminent Renaissance man, but in the Renaissance of Huizinga's making, when being a "Renaissance Man" was a dicier proposition than popularly held. He was after all, a friend of both Thomas More and Henry VIII. Huizinga's Erasmus is brilliant, though not particularly original, and he was often broke, sick, insecure, unemployed, displaced-at the height of his reputation, no less.
The original literary works of Erasmus demonstrate scholarship, mastery of the pen, satire, wit, and synthesis. As Huizinga observed, Erasmus wrote less from piety than from humanistic reasoning. Despite the fact that his "Praise of Folly" is his best remembered original work, Erasmus had little patience for folly, which he would have defined in real life as extremism, violence, or pretension. His satire could be pointed, but he was never mad at the world per se, only those who would deface it needlessly. Theologically, he espoused "low church Catholicism" stripped of both spiritual and practical indulgences. His satire poked fun at Church excess, but this was hardly earthshaking at a time when many intellectuals laughed down their sleeves at ecclesiastical pomp.
His major gift to the Renaissance and subsequent ages, in my view, is his application of philology to the Sacred Scriptures, an effort that would also cause his greatest friction with Catholicism. With the reverence of antiquity so common to his age, Erasmus mastered Latin and Greek to the point where he was able to discover major linguistic flaws in the official Catholic translation of Scripture, St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate edition. Erasmus, an eminently reasonable man, assumed that his Church would tolerate-in fact, welcome-a cleaner, more accurate rendering of the Bible, and he proceeded to edit the Vulgate with available Greek manuscripts. Pascal was yet to be born, so perhaps Erasmus can be excused his shock that the loyal faithful remained devoted to the Vulgate "for reasons of the heart." The Vulgate translation in 1500 enjoyed an almost sacramental reverence; it was the official text for the sacraments and, in fact, for all of the great body of scholastic medieval theology that synthesized orthodox Catholicism and the cosmos.
As every contemporary Scripture scholar is painfully aware, every translation is in fact an interpretation, a point not lost upon the Roman Curia. Given his known temperament, one would have to concede that Erasmus, who routinely fled from confrontation, was rather innocent of the charge that he was undermining things sacred. But worse, Erasmus had opened the door to doubts regarding the credibility of a sacred work which was in its own right a part of antiquity, having been composed around 400 A.D. He had given fuel to Protestant reformers and added Jerome's masterpiece to the growing list of accretions that needed purging. Luther, a scripture scholar himself, recognized the value of Erasmus's work and courted him for years, mostly by mail. The winning of Erasmus's hand by Protestant suitors would have been a major symbolic victory.
But Luther came to discover that even the most rational "Renaissance Men" have reasons of the heart. The reasonable Erasmus was traumatized by the irrationality of division. Perhaps the executions of his friends Thomas More and John Fisher or the general polemic and bloodshed that accompanied religious revolution led him to do the unthinkable for a humanist: make a decision. He threw his lot with Roman Catholicism. The reaction of both sides tells the stakes: Luther excoriated Erasmus in the choicest terms of his rich vocabulary. The Curia forgave Erasmus his translations and offered him a red hat shortly before his death. Both gestures indicate that we may never capture, at this distance, the reasons of the hearts of those who admired Erasmus as a man, a writer, and a symbol. But Huizenga makes a noble effort.
Informative Historical Perspective.......2003-11-15
In the preface, G. N. Clark tells us of Johan Huizinga that his "great success and reputation came suddenly when he was over forty. Until that time his powers were ripening, not so much slowly as secretly."
Huizinga starts his history of Erasmus with his childhood. He was born in Rotterdam, Holland in 1466. His years in the monastery are covered in the second chapter. We're told he was well read in Jerome. Furthermore he was consumed with the works of St. Augustine. In the summer of 1495 his studies carried him to the University of Paris. It was on this campus that a struggle of ideas was occurring. The story continues as Erasmus goes to England.
Erasmus was a true wandering scholar at times with no home of his own. In describing his travels, his studies, his love of God, his calling, the modern Christian scholar can sense the continuity of the personalities who went ahead to pave the way for our contritutions.
Customer Reviews:
Would have been much better without the extraneous religious commentary.......2006-09-26
Please, read this book before you give it to your children. There is a bias running throughout. I don't know whether to call it "politically correct" or "anti Christian" or what. Here's an example from the chapter on St. Francis and St. Dominic, which begins thus:
"There is a sad fact about the institutions which men found. No matter how clearly the founders may state the goals, eventually high purposes degenerate and organizations develop bureaucracies whose main goal seems to be to preserve their own existence and power. The church [sic] is affected by this tendency as well. Every so often in the Middle Ages, someone noticed that the church was in need of reform. Benedict had withdrawn from Rome and founded his monastery... Hildebrand, another monk, led a reform movement... A few hundred years later, two more reformers arose. Their movements led to the founding of two new and different kinds of monastic orders (in another two hundred years, a German monk named Martin Luther would lead another reform movement...)
...The first reformer was named Francis."
My jaw dropped when I read this. I have honestly never seen St. Benedict, Hildebrand (aka Pope St. Gregory VII) and St. Francis listed on the same page with Martin Luther as "reformers." Furthermore, those who believe that the Church was established not by a man but by God might be taken aback by the author's impertinent commentary. Why couldn't the book just factually state what St. Francis did, rather than pontificate on the nature of religious institutions?
I just did not feel comfortable with the tone of this book. Like another book in the series, "Famous Men of the Renaissance & Reformation," it offers too much conjecture and commentary on religion. If you are religious yourself (or just someone who could do without the distracting comments), you might want to pass on this book.
History comes to life.......2006-05-20
I have appreciated the approach to History that the Shearers provide. The idea of meeting people via their text and supoprting fiction and non-fiction literature is so much more interesting than the History Textbooks I grew up with. It has been a wonderful education for, not just my children, but for me. We have learned of interesting historical people and then had a person on who we could associate facts.
Useful help, even with flaws.......2001-04-18
We have now used all the Greenleaf Press series of Famous Men books and their companion Guides. As usual, we've found much help with teaching our children history, even our eight year old. However, I must note some lack quality in the publishing. This is most evident in some sloppy typography, especially within a map of Italy. Through some technical glitch at the printer's, much of the captioning on the map is lost. This is sad, and probably inexcusable for a book at this price. Otherwise, an excellent investment.
An excellent an informative guide to the 'famous men'........1999-02-25
The Shearer duo has produced a valuable history of the Renaissance and Reformation by doing biographies on the leading men of the time. The biographies are very readable, and contain narrative, pictures and primary source quotes which together give an excellent overview of the man, his family and the time. This book, coupled with 'Famous Men of the Middle Ages', provides the student (Junior High and up) with a foundation of knowledge concerning the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation.
Average customer rating:
|
The Anointment of Dionisio: Prophecy and Politics in Renaissance Italy
Marion Leathers Kuntz
Manufacturer: Pennsylvania State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Historical
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Italy
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Medieval
| Italy
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Renaissance
| Italy
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| World
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Medieval
| World
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Renaissance
| World
| History
| Subjects
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
ASIN: 0271021349 |
Book Description
"This exciting book explodes several widely held myths about the spiritual climate of Italy during the late sixteenth century. Kuntz makes it clear that the prophetic tradition remained a major force throughout the Cinquecento and that, outside the formal institutional structures of the church, there was widespread disillusionment with Trent. This well-crafted history brings the reader into the pleasures and challenges of historical detective work at its best." —John Martin, Trinity University
In 1566 a flamboyant Frenchman who called himself Dionisio Gallo mesmerized crowds of onlookers as he preached in the courtyard of the ducal palace in Venice. Believing he had been anointed by the Virgin, he delivered a message of reform of church and society. Soon he was arrested, tried before the Inquisition, and banished. In The Anointment of Dionisio, Marion Leathers Kuntz tells the bizarre tale of this itinerant preacher, using his story to illuminate the checkered political and religious landscape of Counter-Reformation Europe.
No ragged John the Baptist, Dionisio preached in an elegant Latin, demonstrated a command of the intellectual tradition of prophetic writings, dressed so splendidly that many thought him a great prelate, and attracted the devotion of the king of France and a cluster of reform-minded princes and Venetian senators. So powerful was his call for reform that ecclesiastical authorities hesitated to arrest him and seemed confounded when they attempted to interrogate him. Kuntz recounts Dionisio's career with considerable aplomb, making a man who still remains mysterious in many ways come to life. In the end Kuntz gives us a richly layered depiction of the relationship between politics and religious reform during the decade of the Council of Trent. We learn how much prophecy and eschatology, especially when delivered by someone as persuasive, literate, and commanding as Dionisio, could still attract the intelligentsia of France and Italy.
Book Description
Clement Marot (1496-1544), a poet of distinction, is a unique witness to the effect of the Bible on French-speaking courts. He was admired by Francis I, protected by Margaret of Navarre, and by Renee, the French Duchess of Ferrara. His translations of the psalms came to dominate Huguenot worship, inspiring many imitators, not least in English. His commitment to Lutheran theology shines through his personal poetry--once his Scriptural allusions are recognised and interpreted. Clement Marot: A Renaissance Poet Discovers the Gospel is a fundamental expansion and recasting for an English-reading public of Marot Evangelique, Michael Screech's study which brings out the appeal to this court poet of Lutheranism and martyrdom. Chapters also examine aspects of Marot's cult of the Virgin and a possible shift from Lutheranism to Calvinism.
Average customer rating:
|
Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation
Manufacturer: University of Toronto Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Renaissance
| Schools, Periods & Styles
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Historical
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
| British
| Canadian
| General
| Holocaust
| United States
Reference & Collections
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
20th Century
| World
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Renaissance
| World
| History
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0802085776 |
Book Description
Contemporaries of Erasmus contains biographical information about more than 1900 people mentioned in the correspondence and other writings of Erasmus. This paperback edition is a reprint of the three-volume set published between 1985 and 1987. The volumes have been combined into a single volume Â- without any editorial changes Â- to provide a manageable and affordable edition of a magisterial work. The remarkable breadth of ErasmusÂ' contacts throughout his life is reflected in this unique volume. Differing substantially from the national biographical dictionaries that restrict themselves to major figures, Contemporaries of Erasmus combines the famous with the obscure Â- popes and politicians, artists and poets, knights and theologians Â- covering every individual mentioned whose death occurred after the year 1450. Well known figures include Martin Luther, King Henry VIII, Machiavelli, Popes Nicholas V and Peter IV, and Emperor Charles V.
Dipping into the pages of this fully illustrated volume will intrigue and delight the casual reader, but the combined volume will also be an indispensible tool for those who have searched in vain for a biographical dictionary of the Renaissance and the Reformation.
Books:
- The Seven Ages of Man's Best Friend: A Comprehensive Guide for Caring for Your Dog Through All the Stages of Life
- The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer
- The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People
- The Western Tradition: From the Renaissance to the Present
- The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
- Thermopylae: The Battle for the West
- Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World
- Thunderstruck
- Understanding Contemporary Africa (Understanding: Introductions to the States & Regions of the Contemporary World)
- Van Day Truex: The Man Who Defined Twentieth-Century Taste and Style
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole
- The Knitting Experience: Book 1: The Knit Stitch
- Solution States: A Course in Solving Problems in Business with the Power of NLP
- Practical Statistics For Field Biology
- The Address Directory of Celebrities in Entertainment, Sports, Business & Politics, Second Editi
- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
- The Seven Storey Mountain
- The Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photographers
- Pay Me in Stock Options: Manage the Options You Have, Win the Options You Want
- Parent List With Company Names
