Thomas More: A Biography by Richard MariusReview by: James HitchcockThe American Historical Review, Vol. 91, No. 4 (Oct., 1986), pp. 913-914Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1873368 .

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Modern Europe 913

argued, meticulously researched account of a spe- cific historical episode, it ranges over the political thought of the entire century and offers a global perspective on its subject. Bracher, moreover, has left behind the patina of historical neutrality that characterized his earlier work and now speaks with the voice of a politically committed observer deeply anxious about the potential he sees in the present, especially in his native country, for a repetition of the past. Die deutsche Diktatur ended with the confi- dent slogan "Bonn is not Weimar"; now fifteen or so years later, he seems less certain.

The vantage point from which Bracher speaks is perhaps best called neoconservative, despite his spe- cific qualms about the usefulness of the term. Throughout the book, his major preoccupation is to defend the totalitarianism analysis called into ques- tion by the radical historiography of the 1960s with its penchant for fascism as a generic category distin- guishing Right from Left. Rather than stressing what might be called the structural roots of totali- tarianism in Germany or elsewhere, Bracher em- phasizes instead what he terms "ideologization," which he contrasts with the sober defense of liberal democratic ideas and institutions. He scorns at- tempts to see continuities between beleaguered lib- eral or centrist ideas and those of the radical Right in favor of the familiar argument that les extremes se touchent. And, like many neoconservatives who bi- zarrely see themselves as marginal outsiders in a world run by Reagan, Kohl, and Thatcher, he evinces an edgy pessimism about the future in an age still prone to radical ideologies and the totalitar- ian temptations to which they often lead.

However one may judge this analysis, what will make this book ultimately a disappointment to both supporters and foes alike is its paucity of fresh ideas. To anyone familiar with the work of J. L. Talmon, Eric Voegelin, Leszek Kolakowski, Karl Popper, and the group Bracher oddly calls "liberal sociologists" (Seymour Martin Lipset, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Samuel Huntington, Daniel Bell, and Jeane Kirk- patrick), Zeit der Ideologien will contain no surprises. Along with its defense of Western democracy goes a predictable reliance on technological progress as an antidote to unrest. Thus, without pausing to con- sider the ideological assumptions in his own posi- tion, Bracher blithely asserts that "any lowering of performance or efficiency in favor of political par- ticipation, no matter how important or desirable, holds the risk of a serious upset of the equilibrium which can only just about be maintained, by further scientific progress and by relieving man of further burdens in the postindustrial society" (p. 229).

As a broad history of ideas, figures, and political events, this book rushes forward at too fast a pace to make an original contribution to any issue it treats. At times, Bracher stumbles in his attempts at rapid

characterization, as when he describes George Orwell as a "former communist" (p. 197) and says Maurice Barres "from the outset" wanted to harmo- nize nationalism and socialism, thus forgetting Bar- res's radically individualist roots in a "culte du moi" (p. 58). But it is less these errors than the crabbed political vision of their author that ultimately ran- kles. Thus, the victims of the German Berufsverbot are snidely dismissed as "revolutionaries, as it were, claiming a pension" (p. 198), the crisis over the Vietnam War in America is called a "conflict be- tween worldwide obligations and domestic self- doubt" (p. 204), and the hopeful policy of detente between East and West is dismissed as "certainly grounded also in ideology" (p. 196). The result is a kind of politically charged, woodenly translated, middle-brow handbook, which is as tediously pre- dictable in its judgments as it is uninspired in its explanations. Those who share Bracher's avowed nostalgia for the 1950s, his favorite decade of the century, may find this book a comfort, but even they will find little new to fuel their "nonideological" view of the world. And those of us who learned so much from him as a historian will only regret his transfor- mation into a political pamphleteer.

MARTIN JAY

University of California, Berkeley

RICHARD MARIUS. Thomas More: A Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1984. Pp. xxiv, 562. $22.95.

This is by far the most comprehensive biography of Thomas More ever written, and it makes use of the large body of More materials that have been brought to light in the past two decades. As Richard Marius himself reminds us from time to time, his book is not hagiographical and thus differs from most More biographies and certain specialized stud- ies such as J. A. Guy's on More's public career. There is great learning in the book, but the reader will have some difficulty evaluating the arguments because, for financial reasons, footnotes have been minimized wherever possible. Much of the time Marius is carrying on a debate with previous More scholars, but he presumes the reader already knows the position he is questioning, just as he assumes a thorough knowledge of the sources, since he does not attempt to document his every assertion.

Most readers will have points of disagreement with Marius's interpretations, but his arguments are generally plausible and faithful to the evidence. There is no doubt that the tapestry of More's life as here laid out is richer, more complex, and more intriguing than that found in traditional hagiograph- ical biographies. But a blatant bias, which can only be called contentious, informs the work. I do not

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914 Reviews of Books

want to speculate about Marius's personal beliefs, but his pages reflect the perspective of the modern unbeliever who is made uncomfortable and even angry by the "fanaticism" of the sixteenth century. (The same viewpoint, possibly even more pro- nounced, is obvious in Marius's earlier work on Martin Luther.)

The bias is most obvious in the interpretive prin- ciple, stated explicitly on page x, that the fierce religious controversies of the sixteenth century masked gnawing doubts, on the part of both Cath- olics and Protestants, about the very existence of God. At best, this can only be surmised or even guessed, and modern psychology shows that this is scarcely the only possible explanation of "fanati- cism": if people really believe that great truths are at stake, whether in religion or in politics, they are likely to become vehement about them. Marius's attempt to glimpse into More's soul is thus in the nature of things unproven and unprovable. Simi- larly, Marius speculates that an obsessive tension in More's life was caused by his decision to marry: More's sexual drives were too strong for him to remain celibate, yet he felt guilty for abandoning the higher calling of the monastic life. Evidence can be found for this interpretation, but the thesis still remains contentious. In too many places the author introduces a conclusion with "It is not perhaps too much to speculate...."

Occasionally Marius's account is inaccurate. In the introduction, for example, John Henry Newman not only is incorrectly associated with Anglo- Catholic ritualism but also is made to seem an opponent of Darwinianism; in fact, Newman's few comments on Darwin seem accepting of that scien- tist's ideas. In another place papal infallibility is equated with the belief that priests cannot sin (p. 457), an equation that the Catholic church has been careful not to make. Most serious is the author's confusion of the Lutheran doctrine of predestina- tion with the general Christian doctrine of divine providence (p. 472), a telescoping that renders the theological controversies of the sixteenth century virtually unintelligible. In addition, Marius is some- times unable to control his polemical impulses, as when he describes medieval urges that made people "icrawl dismally on all fours through the dark sewers of their hidden selves," a description that would surely apply more justly to modern psychotherapy (p. 320).

Given Marius's perspective, More's polemical ex- changes with William Tyndale-probably the most neglected of all his writings in modern times- inevitably seem symptomatic of More's unbalanced mind. The dispute was indeed ferocious, but it is wrong to imply, as Marius does, that no intellectual substance underlay those books. In fact, they con- tain a sophisticated argument, made at the begin-

ning of Western modernity, about the competing claims of individual and community, tradition and innovation, even (in the manner of Marshall McLuhan) about oral and print cultures.

Among his achievements, Marius has forever de- prived modern "liberal" Catholics of one of their favorite saints. It was always something of an anom- aly that they claimed him, and Marius correctly points out what has been forgotten only by those who wanted to forget it: that More was devoted unshakably to the authority of the Catholic church and countenanced the persecution of heresy.

As to the rest, the very obviousness of the author's biases help give the book enduring value. Had he been less blunt, his more dubious arguments might have subtly undermined the whole. As it is, the reader knows precisely where the author stands and can make the requisite allowances. The book is a kind of masterpiece and will receive the ultimate compliment of being used for years even by those who disagree with the author's entire point of view.

JAMES HITCHCOCK

St. Louis University

JAY PASCAL ANGLIN. The Third University: A Survey of Schools and Schoolmasters in the Elizabethan Diocese of London. Norwood, Pa.: Norwood. 1985. Pp. xi, 255. $29.50.

In 1612, George Buck wrote an enthusiastic account of educational facilities in the city of London. You could, he claimed, learn theology, grammar, law, sciences, languages, courtly skills, and sports to such an extent that London might be called "the third university" of England, after Oxford and Cam- bridge. Jay Pascal Anglin's use of this title for his book is not a happy one, since he disclaims rework- ing the whole of this field and limits himself to grammar, languages, and courtly skills. This occu- pies about half of the book; the rest is a rather different study of the schools and schoolmasters of the diocese of London (including Essex) under Elizabeth I. That too is not complete, for it omits the two important topics of the grammar curriculum and the pupils to whom schools catered. The result- ing book is a series of articles rather than an inte- grated whole, and it would have been better to publish them in periodicals.

How then do the separate articles rate? The first, on pre-Elizabethan education in London, is confus- ing. Anglin has done little original work on this subject and draws mainly on secondary works. The topic is complex, and its reconstruction is not achieved here. The second, on Elizabethan en- dowed schools, is a useful but indigestible list of foundations in the manner of W. K. Jordan and ends with some good observations on the role of

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