Thomas More

Classic Thinkers (Thinkers)

by Joanne Paul, Unknown Author

Thomas More remains one of the most enigmatic thinkers in history, due in large part to the enduring mysteries surrounding his best-known work, Utopia. He has been variously thought of as a reformer and a conservative, a civic humanist and a devout Christian, a proto-communist and a monarchical absolutist. His work spans contemporary disciplines from history to politics to literature, and his ideas have variously been taken up by seventeenth-century reformers and nineteenth-century communists.Through a comprehensive treatment of More's writing, from his earliest poetry to his reflections on suffering in the Tower of London, Joanne Paul engages with both the rich variety and some of the fundamental consistencies that run throughout More's works. In particular, Paul highlights More's concern with the destruction of what is held in 'common', whether it be in the commonwealth or in the body of the church. In so doing, Paul reestablishes More's place in the history of political thought, tracing the reception of his ideas to the present day.Paul's book serves as an essential foundation for any student encountering More's writing for the first time, as well as providing an innovative reconsideration of the place of his works in the history of ideas.

Genres: History

Paperback

About the author

Dr Joanne Paul is an award-winning historian, broadcaster and writer with a passion for sharing her research on Renaissance and Tudor history. She is Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Sussex and a 2017 AHRC/BBC Radio 3 New Generation Thinker. She has published in the Cambridge University Press 'Ideas in Context' series and has been widely praised for her work on Thomas More, William Shakespeare, Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes. The House of Dudley is her acclaimed history of the Dudley family. Picked as a Times Book of the Week and Book of 2022 by The Times, The Telegraph and History Today, The House of Dudley also garnered stellar reviews in The Sunday Times, Mail on Sunday, Literary Review, Spectator and Wall Street Journal.

Reviews

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew little about Thomas More before I read this excellent, entertainingly informative biography; pretty much all that I did know had been garnered from Fred Zinneman’s film of Robert Bolt’s play, A Man for All Seasons. Joanne Paul does a great job here of setting More in the context of his time (particularly the intellectual and philosophical framework for his religious and political beliefs) while never losing sight of the essence of the man himself. I’ve read very few biographies that give such a vivid and distinct sense of the quiddity of the subject as is the case here.

[Martin Empson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas More was one of England's most important philosophers. A prolific writer and thinker, his writings and ideas are often neglected today with most people knowing him for his role in Henry VIII's court and his most famous work Utopia. So Joanne Paul's new book that explores and rescues More's work is to be very much welcomed.

Full review: http://resolutereader.blogspot.co.uk/...

[Yooperprof · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joanne Paul writes exceptionally well about complex ideas in their historical context. Through close text reading and a willingness to engage with humanist thought on its own terms, Paul provides illumination and elucidation both of the time period of which she writes, and the emblematic, occasionally contradictory, and fascinating figure of Thomas More.