Calvin: A Biography

This biography sheds new light on the life and personality of the great Reformer - and the milieu in which he lived and worked. Cottret's Cal vin is not the static theologian of earlier biographies, but a man of enormous vigour, constantly on the move in his thinking as well as in his life. Professor Cottret introduces the reader to the world into which Calvin was born, and follows him from childhood to humanistic and literary and finally back to Geneva. The vital issues of the day are encountered as it were through Calvin's eyes, as the author leads the reader through the dramatic upheavals of 16th-century Europe.

What is it that makes a good biography so satisfying? An interesting subject, of course, but also one that is treated with both fairness and depth, placing that figure in the richness of his or her historical context. In this way we get all the pleasures of a good story along with the delight of learning. This is what Bernard Cottret accomplishes in his biography of John Calvin, now translated into English from the French. More historian than theologian, Cottret brings a useful objectivity to this study. In doing so the book reminds us of the fascination of subjects we might too easily consider merely academic. Immensely influential in his own time (and in our own, almost 500 years later), this biography gives us the story of Calvin's life in its historical context and a succinct analysis of his theology. It appropriately detours in order to remind the reader of the context in which Calvin was growing up: brief explorations of the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation, for example, remind us that these were not simply subjects in school in the early 1500's. As Cottret notes, Calvin turned 21 in 1530: what would it mean to be an immensely gifted and driven young man at such a time in Europe? It's a great question to ask, and in this book Cottret answers it with style and depth. --Doug Thorpe