From Justin Taylor:
20 Biography Recommendations: Nettles, Haykin, Finn, and Reeves
Tom Nettles is
professor of historical theology at the Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary. His most recent publication, years in the making, is a major biography of Charles Spurgeon.
Here are his top biography recommendations:
1. Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer.
This is a slap in the face for those of us who are always looking for
the politically appropriate [safe] time to say something true.
2. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards.
For the purposes of seminary class, I use Murray’s biography.
To show, however, in a charming but serious-minded way to a secular
public how seriously and deeply a Christian can think about issues of
ultimate importance, this is the book to loan (you could not give many
of them away).
3. Roland Bainton, Here I Stand.
A beautifully crafted story of a rough and resolute man whose discovery
of truth so melded itself into his soul that he feared to distinguish
between his truth-informed conscience and the final claim of God on his
life.
4. Sharon James, My Heart in His Hands: Ann Judson of Burma.
Sharon James gives a sensitive and vigorous unfolding of one of the most
intensely important lives of nineteenth-century American
evangelicalism. Without Ann Judson, American evangelical foreign
missions might never have gotten off the ground.
5. Iain Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years, 1899-1939 and D. Marty Lloyd Jones: The Fight of Faith, 1939-1981.
This provides great encouragement and instruction for pastors seeking a ministry given to scriptural and doctrinal edification of the Bride of Christ.
[JT note: see also an updated and revised one-volume abridged edition.]
Michael Haykin is
professor of church history and biblical spirituality, as well as
director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, at the
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Here are his recommendations, in chronological order:
1. Iain Murray, Jonathan Edwards.
A biography of the remarkable American theologian that brings the reader face to face with Edwards’ God.
2. Faith Cook, William Grimshaw of Haworth.
A biography that I hold dear because it is a challenge to my wimpishness, something this Canadian Christian historian deeply laments. Grimshaw was a true radical.
3. Andrew Fuller, Memoirs of Samuel Pearce.
A classic biography that is focused on Pearce’ s piety, which cannot fail to impact the heart for good.
4. Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore.
A riveting missionary narrative of the life of Adoniram Judson.
5. Iain Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years, 1899-1939 and D. Marty Lloyd Jones: The Fight of Faith, 1939-1981.
The two-volume biography of Martyn Lloyd- Jones, the most powerful twentieth-century influence on my life.
Nathan Finn
is associate professor of historical theology and Baptist studies, and
fellow of the L. Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture, at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Here are his recommendations:
1. Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson (1956; reprint, Judson Press, 1987).
This is my all-time favorite biography. Anderson provides an appreciative, but realistic portrayal of an inspiring missionary pioneer.
2. Hugh Evan Hopkins, Charles Simeon of Cambridge (Eerdmans, 1977).
This is a winsome popular biography of a key pastor-theologian in late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century British evangelicalism. Required reading for pastors.
3. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (Yale University Press, 2003).
Marsden’s work is the gold standard for a scholarly biography that is at the same time sympathetic toward its subject. His A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards is also great.
4. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo, 2nd ed. (University of California Press, 2000).
Many church historians consider this to be the best scholarly biography of a major Christian leader, and I’m often inclined to agree. A close second to Mardsen’s biography of Edwards.
5. David McCullough, John Adams (Simon and Schuster, 2003).
McCullough is a master storyteller. If I ever write a biography, I hope it reads half as well as this excellent popular biography of America’s second president.
Michael Reeves is Theologian-at-Large at the Wales Evangelical School of Theology.
Here are his recommendations:
1. Roland Bainton, Here I Stand
A true masterpiece of a biography, Here I Stand draws you deep into Luther’s life so you both understand and feel the significance of what he faced and what he did.
2. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards
Marsden shows beautifully what a biography can do, for he not only tells a good story, his sensitive observations and reflections humanise you as you read.
3. Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror
Tuchman does two extraordinary things here: she maps the history of an age (fourteenth century Europe) through the story of one man, and she forms in us a real emotional attachment to this character who otherwise is so distant and foreign.
4. Paul Johnson, Churchill
This little book reads like champagne, Johnson’s very style of writing capturing the fizz and pop of his subject.
5. Faith Cook, William Grimshaw of Haworth
Atmosphere, action, great character: it’s Wuthering Heights meets Whitfield-Wesley revival.
10 Recommended Biographies: John Wilson and Marvin Olasky
John Wilson is editor of Books & Culture and editor at large for Christianity Today magazine.
“It is impossible for me to say these are the top five, but I can say here are five biographies I think are wonderful, each in its own way.”
1. John Benedict Buescher, The Remarkable Life of John Murrary Spear: Agitator for the Spirit Land.
Buescher has written a marvelous life of a subject (“ahead of his time” in a drastically muddled way) whose resistance to any conventional narrative—not to mention his sheer bad taste—would have daunted a lesser biographer.
2. Samuel Johnson, The Lives of the Poets.
Some of the best “biographies” are much shorter than book-length, giving us the gist of a life; Johnson set the standard.
3. Hugh Kenner, The Pound Era.
Part biography, part “literary criticism,” part intellectual history—and altogether extraordinary.
4. Simone Petrement, Simone Weil: A Life.
There are drawbacks to a biography written by a friend of the subject, but this is nevertheless an indispensable account of the enigmatic, God-haunted Frenchwoman.
5. Frances Stonor Saunders, The Woman Who Shot Mussolini.
This heart-breaking story of Violet Gibson (the woman of the title) and Italy under Mussolini juxtaposes the mental instability of a devout Catholic woman, cruelly abandoned by her family (though her “madness” made a kind of sense), with the megalomania of Il Duce, long indulged.
Marvin Olasky is editor-in-chief of WORLD Magazine.
Here are his top five biography recommendations:
1. Ira Stoll, Samuel Adams: A Life (Free Press, 2008).
As Adams’ biblical faith helping him to balance zeal with wariness, he fomented a revolution that (unlike those in France and Russia) did not end in a bloodbath and dictatorship.
2. Thomas Kidd, Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots (Basic, 2011).
A great life with surprising twists, including Henry’s 1773 analysis of the slavery system as anti-biblical, repugnant, and destructive to liberty—but hard to give up.
3. Phillip Simpson, A Life of Gospel Peace: A Biography of Jeremiah Burroughs (Reformation Heritage Books, 2011).
Places a spotlight on little-known Jeremiah Burroughs, 17th-century explainer of how to gain the “Rare jewel of Christian contentment.”
4. Robert J. Norrell, Up from History: The Life of Booker T. Washington (Harvard University Press, 2009).
Historians have either angelized or demonized him, often unaware of the twisting racetrack he had to run on to keep from being run over.
5. Stanley Kurtz, Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism (Simon and Schuster, 2010).
Refrains from hysteria and methodically shows how Obama takes steps “designed to slowly but surely move the country closer to the socialist ideal.”
15 Biography Recommendations: D.G. Hart, Sean Lucas, Kevin DeYoung
D. G. Hart is visiting professor of history at Hillsdale College and the author of the standard biography of J. Gresham Machen, and most recently, a history of Calvinism.
Here are five biographies he recommends:
1. Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (1950).
A colorful treatment of an even more colorful figure that captures the
central dynamic of the Reformation, namely, how to be right with God.
2. Stewart Brown, Thomas Chalmers and the Godly Commonwealth in Scotland (1982).
A scrupulously researched inquiry that situates a hero of Scottish
Calvinism within the political, educational, and ecclesiastical
complexities of nineteenth-century Scotland.
3. Harry S. Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (1991).
A provocative account that looks past hagiography to capture the human
(and sometimes unflattering) aspects of Protestantism’s greatest
evangelist.
4. Terry Teachout, The Skeptic: A Life of H. L. Mencken (2002).
Arguably the best biography of the infamous literary critic in part
because the author, a music critic, takes into account the subject’s
love of music.
5. Bruce Gordon, Calvin (2009).
A smartly conceived narrative that allows Calvin’s “greatness” to emerge
not from hindsight but from the accidents of sixteenth-century Europe.
Sean Michael Lucas is senior minister at The First Presbyterian Church, Hattiesburg, MS, and previously taught church history at Covenant Theological Seminary. Among his books is a biography of Robert Lewis Dabney: A Southern Presbyterian Life (P&R, 2005).
Here are his top five picks:
1. D. G. Hart, Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America (Johns Hopkins, 1994; reprint, P&R).
2. Allen Guelzo, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (Eerdmans, 1999).
3. Bruce Gordon, Calvin (Yale, 2009).
4. Harry S. Stout, A Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (Eerdmans, 1991).
5. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (Yale, 2003).
“This is an odd list. I think the one common thread is that these are all intellectual biographies that pay attention to the way that their ideas or actions operated within their cultural systems. Another is that they all (except for Gordon) influenced the way I thought about biography when I went to write my Robert Lewis Dabney: A Southern Presbyterian Life (P&R, 2005).”
Kevin DeYoung is senior pastor at University Reformed Church in East Lansing, MI, and a PhD candidate at the University of Leicester, studying John Witherspoon under John Coffey.
Here are his picks:
1. Allen C. Guelzo, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (Eerdmans 1999).
This book shines because Guelzo is an excellent writer, with a knack for penetrating insights and fresh interpretations. I felt like I got to know Lincoln, so much so that by the end I was terribly sad when he showed up at Ford’s Theater.
2. Paul C. Gutjahr, Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy (Oxford 2011).
While I don’t agree with every conclusion in the book, it is a great
example of an academic biography that is eminently readable. The
chapters are short and the story moves at a good pace. Gutjahr is
sympathetic to Hodge without being uncritical.
3. David McCullough, John Adams (Touchstone 2001).
The guy can flat-out write. No one does popular (yet substantive) biography as well as McCullough.
4. Paul Johnson, Churchill (Viking 2009).
Johnson demonstrates that you can write meaningfully about a massive
subject in a short biography (181 pages). This book is especially strong
in the lessons it draws from Churchill’s life.
5. D.G. Hart, Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America (P & R Publishing, 2003).
Hart writes lucid prose about a figure he knows inside and out. By
helping us understand Machen, we come to understand an entire era in
American church history.
15 Biography Recommendations: Thomas Kidd, John Fea, and Doug Sweeney
Thomas Kidd is
professor of history at Baylor University and Senior Fellow at the
Institute for Studies of Religion. Among other works, he is the author
of Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots and a major biography due out next year from Yale University Press on George Whitefield (marking his 300th birthday).
He writes, “I am focusing on biographies from the colonial and Revolutionary eras of American history. I heartily agree with Mark Noll’s recommendation of my doctoral adviser George Marsden and his Jonathan Edwards biography, which would otherwise be at the top of my list. Since he’s already mentioned it, here’s the next five.”
1. David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride (Oxford University Press, 1994).
Fischer not only offers an evocative treatment of Revere and his world—which was more interesting than what Longfellow’s “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” told us—but one of the best books on the American Revolution, period.
2. Kenneth Silverman, The Life and Times of Cotton Mather (Harper and Row, 1984).
A Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of one of the most intense (some might say neurotic), prolific, and tragic of all the American Puritans. Reading this will help you understand why one of his opponents once firebombed Mather’s house!
3. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 (Knopf, 1990).
Another Pulitzer Prize-winner, Ulrich’s remarkable recreation of Ballard’s compelling life is perhaps the best American social history biography ever written.
4. John Demos, The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America (Knopf, 1994).
This is a biography of the Williams family, especially of Eunice Williams, who fell victim to a 1704 Native American raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts. Demos tells the poignant story of how the seven year old Eunice grew up among the Mohawks, married an Indian man, accepted Catholicism, and never returned to the Puritan fold in spite of fervent appeals by generations of her family.
5. Catherine Brekus, Sarah Osborn’s World: The Rise of Evangelical Christianity in Early America (Yale University Press, 2013).
As I wrote in my review for The Gospel Coalition, Brekus’s extraordinary portrait of Osborn may be the best biography we have of an American evangelical woman.
John Fea is
associate professor of American history and chair of the history
department at Messiah College in Grantham, PA, and the author most
recently of Why Study History? Reflecting on the Importance of the Past (Baker Academic, 2013).
1. Debby Applegate, The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher.
A vivid portrayal of 19th-century culture through the life of a member of one of the century’s most famous families.
2. Richard Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling.
Bushman brings the founder of Mormonism to life with elegant prose and scholarly insight.
3. Robert Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.
Caro is known today for his biographies of Lyndon B. Johnson, but this earlier biography of the urban planner and landscape architect who “built” 20th century New York City reads like a novel.
4. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life.
The best biography of Edwards ever written and a model for religious biography.
5. Eric Miller, Hope in a Scattering Time: A Life of Christopher Lasch.
Miller’s bio of late-twentieth century cultural critic and historian Christopher Lasch is one of the best intellectual biographies I have read.
Douglas Sweeney is
professor and chairman of church history and history of Christian
thought at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, as well as director of
their Jonathan Edwards Center. Among his books is the very helpful Jonathan Edwards and the Ministry of the Word: A Model of Faith and Thought.
1. Roland Baiton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther.
It remains the most widely read bio of Luther for good reason. It is a wonderful read on the most important Protestant pastor in history.
2. Skevington Wood, The Burning Heart: John Wesley: Evangelist.
Readers can feel Wesley’s heart burning on almost every page.
3. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography.
Brown has spent his career recreating the world of late antiquity. This biography places our most fecund doctor of the church in that context beautifully.
4. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life.
This is the definitive biography of our most important evangelical intellectual.
5. Alister McGrath, C. S. Lewis—A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet.
This brand-new book makes great use of the recently released correspondence of Lewis, making this late-modern evangelical hero come to life (warts and all) for his fans.
Carl Trueman: 5 Recommended Biographies
Carl R. Trueman is the Paul Woolley Professor of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.
He is the author (among other books) of Histories and Fallacies: Problems Faced in the Writing of History and the forthcoming Luther on the Christian Life.
Here are the top 5 biographies he recommends:
1. Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Young Stalin (Vintage, 2008).
A prequel to Montefiore’s Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar, this is a fascinating study of the early development of the later Soviet dictator and proof of the maxim that the child is father of the man, even when the man is named Joseph Stalin.
2. Michael Korda, Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia (Harper Perennial, 2011).
The most readable of many biographies of T.E. Lawrencs, the ultimate intellectual man of action and a personal hero.
3. Sheridan Gilley, Newman and His Age (Darton, Longman and Todd, 2002).
Ian Ker’s is surely the definitive biography of John Henry Newman but I give this the edge as being more readable and as offering a fascinating portrait not simply of the most influential religious thinker of the nineteenth century but also of the era in which he lived.
4. D.G. Hart, Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America (P & R Publishing, 2003).
An important study of a key figure in the fundamentalist-modernist debate which also helps to demonstrate why the simple polarities of liberal/conservative are incapable of capturing the nuances of what actually happened.
5. Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and Devil (Yale, 2006).
Oberman’s most brilliant, speculative, flawed, and thought-provoking book is a fascinating study of the
Fred Sanders: 5 Recommended Biogragraphies
Fred Sanders, a theologian who teaches the Great Books in the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University and is the author most recently of Wesley on the Christian Life, offers his five recommended biographies (with a few runner ups).
1. Richard Heitzenrater, The Elusive Mr. Wesley (2nd edition).
In a feat of editorial bravura, Heitzenrater gives the reader first John Wesley in Wesley’s own words, then Wesley as reported by diverse contemporaries, and finally Wesley as reported by previous biographers (hagiographers and haters alike). There are a lot of good Wesley biographies, some more comprehensive, more theologically alert, or more narratively compelling than this one. But Heitzenrater uniquely accomplishes his goal of making you feel like you’ve encountered John Wesley himself.
2. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (2nd edition).
Exquisitely well written, Brown’s book rises above merely reporting the stages along the way of Augustine’s life—though it narrates them well, so readers who need the basic facts can use this as an introduction—and somehow lets the reader empathize with Augustine at each of his different ages. They’re all here: the wild youth who wanted “chastity . . . but not yet,” the ladder-climbing young professor of rhetoric, the idealistic convert, the pastor who had to adapt his theology to the needs of the masses, the celebrity bishop pushed into more and more responsibility, and the consolidator of Christian orthodoxy as the lights of Rome were winking out.
3. Handley Moule, Charles Simeon
Reading Moule on Simeon is a double dose of spiritual insight. Moule was the great evangelical bishop of Durham and a Cambridge don. His telling of the life of Charles Simeon is deeply sympathetic, yielding wonderful insights into the character and spirituality of the preacher whose fifty-year pastorate transformed the ministry of preaching among British evangelicals and beyond. I admit, Moule can occasionally wander a bit and let the timeline become obscure. But I pretend I’m listening to a conspicuously saintly grandfather, and let him ramble. A better biography wouldn’t be able to impart what Moule can, so it wouldn’t be better.
4. Rudolph Nelson, The Making and Unmaking of an Evangelical Mind: The Case of Edward Carnell
This is an example of a biography that imposes a strong interpretive agenda on its subject: the author, Nelson, has apparently seen right through conservative evangelicalism and come out the other side into a space that may be minimal faith or no faith at all. He views the life and tragic death of Fuller Seminary president Edward Carnell as a case study in how evangelical thinkers are forced to engage in high-stakes “cognitive bargaining” with the massive plausibility structures of modernity, and are doomed to defeat. Why would I recommend a book that starts from all the wrong premises and risks distorting its subject so much? Because I can’t remember a biography I’ve argued more vigorously with, and the argument, perhaps despite itself, forces the reader to confront what were after all the main issues Carnell set himself to address.
5. Genevieve Foster, Augustus Caesar’s World
This is a book for young people, and yes, it’s illustrated. Foster focuses on the life of Augustus, but she also looks all over the world and describes what’s happening elsewhere during the years that Augustus is rising and ruling Rome. Foster emphasizes interconnections and simultaneity, and may have been a believer in synchronicity. But what you get in all her history books is an accessible, entertaining, and informative presentation of the things you vaguely feel you should have learned in high school.
Honorable Mentions
Honorable mention goes to the massive, exhaustive, definitive biographies that are too easy to get lost in the details of: Bethge on Bonhoeffer, Torrell on Aquinas, MacCulloch on Cranmer. They tell more than I wanted to know!
Approaching but not crossing that line are the exhaustive-but-readable Marsden on Edwards and Busch on Barth.
Bruce Gordon: 5 Recommended Biographies
Bruce Gordon, Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the Divinity School of Yale University, is the author (among other books) of a major biography simply entitled Calvin (Yale University Press, 2009), “a biography that seeks to put the life of the influential reformer in the context of the sixteenth-century world. It is a study of Calvin’s character, his extensive network of personal contacts and of the complexities of church reform and theological exchange in the Reformation.”
Here are five biographies he recommends:
1. Peter Russell, Prince Henry “the Navigator”: A Life (Yale, 2001).
Russell’s command of every detail, from ship construction to tribes in Senegal, is evident at every point in this beautifully written and compelling tale.
2. Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self (2002).
The book captures the vivacity, wit, and debauchery of Pepys through a sympathetic account of his life in the fast-paced world of Restoration England.
3. George M. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (2003).
From start to finish, pure elegance of prose and a magisterial command of Edward’s thought and character.
4. Rüdiger Safranski, Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography (2002).
Focuses on a brilliant and tortured mind while telling the life of a remarkable man: a rare balance of narrative and philosophical discussion.
5. Jonathan Bate, John Clare: A Biography (2003).
An extraordinary nineteenth-century English poet from the laboring class who achieved brief fame in London before descending into the hell of mental illness.
George Marsden: 5 Recommended Biographies
George M. Marsden is Professor of History, Emeritus, at the University of Notre Dame.
Among other books, he is the author of the award-winning, definitive biography on Jonathan Edwards: A Life (Yale University Press, 2003).
Here is his list of recommended biographies, in alphabetical order of subject:
1. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo.
A classic work and a great exposition of the man and of his era.
2. Robert Caro, Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson.
Wonderful example of the art of great story telling.
3. Walter Lowrie, A Short Life of Kierkegaard.
Probably dated by now, but a great brief introduction to a most complex figure
4. James D. Bratt, Abraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat.
New biography. Wonderfully balanced account about a multifaceted thinker and leader still important for today.
5. Richard Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton.
Excellent at presenting Newton’s thought in the context of its times.
Allen Guelzo’s Top 5 Biographies
Allen
C. Guelzo is the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era
and Director of the Civil War Era Studies Program at Gettysburg College.
He began his scholarly career working on Jonathan Edwards (Edwards on the Will: A Century of Theological Debate [1989] was a revision of his doctoral dissertation). His 1999 biography of Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President won the prestigious Lincoln Prize, as did his Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America. More recently he has written a new history of the Civil War, and his latest book is on the battle of Gettysburg.
Here are five biographies he believes represent the genre at its best.
1. Perry Miller, Jonathan Edwards (1949).
Although lopsided in its effort to place Edwards in the stream of John Locke, Miller’s Edwards is a work of real literary genius.
2. Richard S. Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton (1980).
A glowingly comprehensive and sympathetic biography of one of the greatest of scientific minds.
3. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (1967).
A stupendously erudite re-creation, not only of Augustine, but of the entire world of late antiquity.
4. Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop (1962).
A short but wickedly-well-written biography of the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony, done with surprising sympathy.
5. Henry D. Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism (1989).
No other single work on Wesley and 18th-century England captures the times and the man so well.
Mark Noll’s Top 5 Biographies
I am beginning a new series today, looking at worthwhile and favorite biographies recommended by leading experts. You’ll be able to access the whole series here.
First up is Mark Noll, Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at Notre Dame, one of our foremost scholars of religious and cultural history.
I asked for the top five biographies that best represent the genre at its best, with a little explanation for each.
1. Malcolm Muggeridge, The Chronicles of Wasted Time, 2 vols. (vol. 1, The Green Stick; vol. 2, The Infernal Grove)
This is a great book, although what kind of great book is hard to say. Muggeridge presented this two-volume work as an autobiography, but the books are selective to the point of fiction and strongly back-loaded to reflect Muggeridge’s opinions as they had come to develop by the 1970s. Doubts as to genre notwithstanding, the volumes are as crisp an evisceration of the modern Zeitgeist as one could possibly hope to read. Muggeridge knew almost everyone of note in Britain and also in many other places of the world. As told here, his life was a perpetual series of disillusionments with the gods of the age (Fabianism, Marxist socialism, western affluence) and a progressive self-understanding of what it meant as a journalist extraordinaire, even in the most secular of centuries, to be haunted by God.
2. David Newsome, The Parting of Friends: The Wilberforces and Henry Manning. London: John Murray, 1966 (reprinted with this title by Eerdmans in 1993; the first American printing was by Harvard University Press in 1966 under the title The Wilberforces and Henry Manning).
Newsome’s multiple biography is an old-fashioned kind of history about old-fashioned kind of people. His subjects lived in the luminous circle created by the household of William Wilberforce in the first half of the nineteenth century. This circle was made up of several of Wilberforce’s children, their friends and colleagues, and their sisters and sisters’ friends, themselves a remarkable group of Victorian women. The plot line is the story of the drift from the sturdy evangelicalism of the older Wilberforce to high church Anglicanism and then, for some under the guidance of John Henry Newman, to the Roman Catholic church. The poignancy of the story is the combination of intense fraternal devotion and painful ecclesiastical separation. When some in this circle remained Anglican, the result was broken relationships in homes, colleges (most were connected to Oxford), and the church. Newsome’s gift is to shape the treasure trove of letters left by the participants (they were scribbling away all the time) into a compelling narrative that, while it solves no problems of theology or church loyalty, nonetheless demonstrates the profound humanity of those who engaged those issues in that corner of Victorian England a century and a half ago.
3. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (Yale University Press, 2003).
Marsden succeeds in bringing biography to theology and theology to biography with unusual clarity about both the person and the times.
4. Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther
Newer scholarship has altered details (the book was first published in 1950), but it remains a captivating account of a life-changing person in a life-changing era.
5. Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist
This biography offers scintillating history of science-with-culture for one of the most important thinkers of the modern period.
RUNNERS UP (some very close):
- Bruce Hindmarsh, John Newton and the English Evangelical Tradition: Between the Conversions of Wesley and Wilberforce
- Allen C. Guelzo, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President
- Richard Carwardine, Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power
- Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and Devil
- H.G. Haile, Luther: An Experiment in Biography
- E. Gordon Rupp, Luther’s Progress to the Diet of Worms
- Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo
- G. K. Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas—”The Dumb Ox”
- Edmund S. Morgan, The Gentle Puritan: A Life of Ezra Stiles
- John Pollock, Wilberforce