Not available to order
Publication date:
10 September 2015Length of book:
244 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9781498522274
The year 2015 marks the 15th anniversary of St. Pope John Paul II’s promulgation of Thomas More as Patron Saint of Statesmen and Politicians. Yet during these years no serious answer has been given by a community of scholars as to why More was named such. What were More’s guiding principles of leadership and in what ways might they remain applicable? This collection of essays addresses these questions by investigating More through his writings, his political actions, and in recent artistic depictions.
In 2000 Pope John Paul II proclaimed St. Thomas More to be the patron of statesmen and people in public life. And yet scholarly investigations of More’s principles of statesmanship are still relatively few. In commissioning and editing this often stimulating collection of essays, Travis Curtwright seeks to fill the gap. He and his fellow contributors, several connected to the Center for Thomas More Studies at the University of Dallas, aim to revive interest in More by distilling from his writings and life experiences the very essence of this subtle, steely individual who began as a commercial lawyer and moral philosopher and ended up as Henry VIII’s only honest councilor. It is an approach that in the wrong hands could become clumsily instrumentalist and teleological. Fortunately, these contributors know the pitfalls and largely avoid them…. By writing Utopia, More created an entirely new literary genre, one that has continued to rekindle the perennially central issues of social and political thinking ever since. And for that, his statesmanship should be honored.