Erasmus of Rotterdam: The Spirit of a Scholar(Renaissance Lives)

Erasmus of Rotterdam came from an obscure background and through remarkable perseverance, skill, and vision became a powerful intellectual figure in Europe in the early sixteenth century. He was known for his vigorous opposition to war, intolerance and hypocrisy, and at the same time for an irony and subtlety that could confuse his friends as well as his opponents. His ideas influenced the rise of the Reformation and had a huge impact on the humanities, and that continues to today. This book shows how an independent textual scholar was able, by the power of the printing press and his own wits, to attain both fame and notoriety. Erasmus of Rotterdam is the first popular biography in English in twenty years and is based on the immense amount of recent scholarship devoted to Erasmus.

About the Author :
William Barker is Inglis Professor and former president of the University of King's College and Emeritus Professor of English, Dalhousie University. He has edited a selection of Erasmus' Adages and co-edited the introductory volume of the Adages for the Toronto Collected Works of Erasmus.

Review :
Exemplary . . . Writing with clarity and fluidity, Barker delineates the multiple aspects of the life of this prince of scholars in the context of the political, cultural, theological, and humanistic currents characteristic of the sixteenth century, offering an engaging introduction to the life and accomplishments of Erasmus. This remarkable Renaissance "self-fashioned" prodigy emerged from obscure origins and, thanks to his masterly embrace of the new technology of printing, rose to the summit of his profession. Barker analyzes selections from Erasmus’s voluminous scholarly output and succeeds in presenting a multifaceted portrait of his subject . . . A significant contribution to the corpus of Erasmian scholarship, this volume affords readers access to the scholarly spirit and mindset of a complicated personality, a man thoroughly immersed in the intellectual conflicts of his time. Highly recommended. Erasmus of Rotterdam was the most famous humanist in Northern Europe during the 16th century, and the series of Renaissance Lives published by Reaktion Books would not be complete without an account of the life and writings of this Dutchman. In a handsomely produced book his latest biographer, Professor William Barker, does not disappoint: taking into account the most recent scholarship, painting a colorful picture of a complex life, and writing in a fluid, highly readable style, Barker . . . offers the reader a splendid introduction to the life and writings of Desiderius Erasmus . . . this book is recommended reading for both experts and novices in the era of the Renaissance. General readers attracted to William Barker’s beautifully presented, relatively short, succinctly styled new biography of Erasmus, recognised as the quintessential, European intellectual of the late medieval period, will discover a figure unquestionably more celebrated than known. This book is a gem. It follows Erasmus, the great Renaissance humanist, through a life full of travel, comity, controversy, and scholarship. Barker offers expert distillations of Erasmus’s wide-ranging works and a judicious selection of examples, references, and images. We learn about the many ingredients of Erasmus’s success as a scholar, including his personality traits and intellectual commitments, and his patrons, friends, and helpers. An engaging and very readable popular biography, at times amusing, with insights into the relation of the humanities in Erasmus’ time to our own.