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theclumsybookworm 's review for:
Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther
by Roland H. Bainton
Though sometimes long in the tooth, this was quite an enjoyable read---if you're interested in the Luther or the Reformation that is.
It contains many quotes from Luther and his contemporaries which help to give the book a sense of relevance. It is packed with useful information, but of course that it is important to remember, that Bainton, like all authors/historians had an agenda.
While he claims to want to show the man behind the myth, he cannot help but perpetuate the myth in his writing. For example, the famous quote, from which Bainton gets his title and his closing limes "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise." Was not actually recorded at the time. But Bainton speculates that the scribes were simply "too awestruck to record it."
All this is not to say that it is not a good scholarly work, taken with a grain of salt, this is a very informative,and interesting biography of "the little monk whose inner turmoil tore the western world in half."
It contains many quotes from Luther and his contemporaries which help to give the book a sense of relevance. It is packed with useful information, but of course that it is important to remember, that Bainton, like all authors/historians had an agenda.
While he claims to want to show the man behind the myth, he cannot help but perpetuate the myth in his writing. For example, the famous quote, from which Bainton gets his title and his closing limes "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise." Was not actually recorded at the time. But Bainton speculates that the scribes were simply "too awestruck to record it."
All this is not to say that it is not a good scholarly work, taken with a grain of salt, this is a very informative,and interesting biography of "the little monk whose inner turmoil tore the western world in half."