biography

Review: John Hancock

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Cover image of "John Hancock" by Willard Sterne Randall

John Hancock, Willard Sterne Randall. Dutton (ISBN: 9780593472149) 2025.

Summary: A biography going beyond the flourishing signature to the critical role Hancock played in the American Revolution.

For many of us, the name John Hancock has become synonymous with a flourishing signature, and little more. Some of us know a bit more, that the context of that signature was the Declaration of Independence. What I discovered in reading this biography was that in the first published versions of the Declaration, his signature is the only one, representing his position as President of the Continental Congress. It made him the special object of British attention as a traitor, leading to flight from his Boston home for a time.

All this underscores historian Willard Sterne Randall’s assessment that Hancock played a critical role in the American Revolution. That assessment represents recent archival research. But it was not always so. In 1930, James Truslow Adams described Hancock as “an empty barrel” whose reputation rested on “his money and his gout, the first always used to gain popularity, and the second to prevent his losing it.” Randall makes a very different case.

He begins with Hancock’s humble beginnings as the seven year old son of a clergyman who died. Hancock was subsequently taken under the wing of his uncle Thomas Hancock, who made his fortune as a merchant and shipbuilder. This afforded him a gentleman’s education, including attendance at a writing school to prepare him for work in his uncle’s mercantile enterprises. He completed his Harvard education in time to assist his uncle in the lucrative trade connected with Britain’s French and Indian War.

It was the aftermath of that war that brought the House of Hancock into conflict with the British over customs duties and the seizure of merchandise on which merchants were judged to be evading customs duties. It was also during this time that Thomas began to hand off the business to his capable nephew, making him partner and heir. Thomas was dying of gout, the condition that would later afflict John. Thomas died in 1764, leaving John one of the wealthiest men in the colonies at age 27.

Almost immediately, he plunged into challenging times as business slumped and Parliament passed the hated Stamp Act.. He joined firebrand Sam Adams in resistance to the Act including a boycott. He also seized the opportunity afforded by the Repeal to refocus his trade, building his fortune. Peace was short-lived as the Townshend Acts led to the imposition of new duties. Hancock personally barred a custom’s commissioner bearing outdated orders, precipitating a trial.

The resistance led to British troops in Boston, Hancock’s leadership of the Boston Town Meeting, and his efforts to support armed resistance. Randall’s account traces the subsequent unfolding of events including Hancock;s leadership in Massachusetts and then as President of the Continental Congress. He traces Hancock’s partnership with Washington to provide him the means to fight the British. Hancock spent roughly half of his own wealth in this effort. He also spent his own health, as he increasingly suffered gout attacks.

Randall also describes Hancock’s falling out with Sam Adams as they became political rivals in Massachusetts state government. One of his acts as governor was to advocate ratification of the new Constitution. One of the saddest passages in the book is his meeting with Washington in late 1789. Each witnessed the ravages of the years on the other. Washington wept at how enfeebled Hancock had become.

In conclusion, Randall makes a case for the pivotal contribution Hancock made to American beginnings. First, he was in the forefront of resistance to British policies. He had the foresight to prepare for armed resistance. In addition, he used all his experience with the French and Indian War to provision the troops. He gave political leadership both in Boston and the Continental Congress. Then, he invested a substantial part of his own fortune in the effort. Finally, he gave leadership that helped put his state and the fledgling country on a firm footing. Thus, we learn that this oft-neglected Founder contributed far more than his flourishing signature.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Finally, thanks for visiting Bob on Books.  I appreciate that you spent time here. Feel to “look around” – see the tabs at the top of the website, and the right hand column. And use the buttons below to share this post. Blessings! [Adapted from Enough Light, a blog I follow.]

Review: Emily Dickinson and the Art of Belief

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Cover image of "Emily Dickinson and the Art of Belief" by Roger Lundin

Emily Dickinson and the Art of Belief, Revised Edition (Library of Religious Biography), Roger Lundin. Wm B. Eerdmans (ISBN: 9780802821270) 2004 (My review is based on the first edition, published in 1998).

Summary: A biography of Dickinson focused on her life and faith drawing upon poetry and letters.

I would describe Emily Dickinson as a “beloved enigma.” Her poetry is among the most loved of American poetry, celebrated for her unusual phrasing and keen insight. That is all the more the case considering that she lived the last three decades of her life as a virtual recluse and with only a few exceptions, refused publication of her work during her lifetime.

Roger Lundin’s biography explores that reclusive behavior without explaining it, apart from the poet’s choice. What is more significant, is that he explores her religious faith. Her life was lived in the intersection of a Calvinist-Puritan New England upbringing and the rise of enlightenment romanticism. Lundin writes of her father’s reading of serious books on sabbaths and Emily’s sense of the distance of God the Father while identifying more closely with Christ. She never entered into church membership, eventually ceasing to attend her parent’s church. While others went down the path of Unitarianism, she remained a Trinitarian, and had some sense of Christ giving away his life for us. And she grieved the loss of those close to her in her last years but clearly believed in an afterlife. Challenged by skepticism, she never gave way to it.

The closest Lundin gets to Dickinson’s inner turn is to explore the idea of her inner Preceptor. For Dickinson, her inner life, her perception of the world was of far greater interest than externals. This “romantic isolation of the self” was so powerful that it led to avoiding social contact outside her home for the last thirty years, apart from treatments for her eyes in Boston. It explains her decision to not publish, forgoing all the literary contacts this would necessitate.

This, however did not mean complete isolation. She and her sister Lavinia were close and, together they cared for her parents, in whose home Emily lived. She had a more difficult relationship with Sue, her brother Austin’s wife. Eventually, the social center of the Dickinson family shifted to their house, and Sue and Emily became more distant. Her rare visitors talked to her from a hallway near her room, separated by a partially open door. She was steeped in books, and missed her Shakespeare when forbidden to read due to an eye condition. And she carried on a significant correspondence, particularly with Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who was her frankest critic and eventually, a friend. He shared in editing the earliest posthumous edition of her work.

Lundin traces the chronology of her work, including her explosion of writing between 1858 and 1865. Then her production tailed off, particularly as affliction struck down members of her family and close friends, and finally Emily herself. She died at 58 of Bright’s disease, a kidney disease, passing into her “Rendezvous of Light.’

A feature of this work is that Lundin quotes frequently from her poems. By doing so, her underscores her perceptions of her inner world and the world beyond. And other quotes articulate her own surviving faith. He also uses her correspondence as well as the spiritual and intellectual backdrop of her life in Amherst to sketch her life and the influences that formed her.

The revised edition of this book (which I did not have access to) includes a standard bibliography, expanded notes, and more discussion of her poetry, something I would have liked to see in the first edition. The revision “has also keyed all poem citations to the recently updated standard edition of Dickinson’s poetry.” These enhance what was already an important biography of this quintessentially American poet.

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Finally, thanks for visiting Bob on Books. People aren’t reading blogs like they used to, so I appreciate that you spent time here. Feel to “look around” – see the tabs at the top of the website, and the right hand column. And use the buttons below to share this post. Blessings! [Adapted from Enough Light, a blog I follow.]

Review: Jakob Hutter: His Life and Letters

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Cover image of "Jakob Hutter: his Life and Letters" edited by Emmy Barth Maendel and Jonathan Seiling

Jakob Hutter: His Life and Letters (Classics of the Radical Reformation, 14), edited by Emmy Barth Maendel and Jonathan Seiling. Plough Publishing (ISBN: 9781636080901) 2024.

Summary: Biography, letters by Hutter, chronicles of Hutterites, testimony, and Hutterite and government letters.

The Hutterites were a communal Anabaptist movement residing in the regions of Tyrol and Moravia in the late 1520’s and 1530. While heavily persecuted in Tyrol, they persisted in Moravia throughout the sixteenth century. They take their name from Jakob Hutter, who led the communities for six decisive years from about 1529 to 1535, until his arrest, torture, and execution. This was the fate of many Anabaptists in this period.

Emmy Barth Maendel and Jonathan Seiling have gathered and translated a collection of early writings pertaining to the early Hutterite movement, including eight of the letters of Jakob Hutter. This volume, part of the Classics of the Radical Reformation series represents the fruit of their scholarship. The editors introduce the work with the history of the Anabaptist movement in Tyrol and Moravia and a well-researched account of the life of Jakob Hutter and his wife Katherina They recount his acceptance of Anabaptist faith, his study of scripture, his leadership of communities in Tyrol, oversight of communities in Moravia and move there when Tyrol became too dangerous. And we learn of his and Katharina’s decision in 1535 to return to Tyrol, despite the danger. In the months of his freedom, many believed, until their arrest in Klausen. Authorities held them separately. Katharina escaped but later joined her husband in martyrdom.

The second part of the book consists of translations of eight of Jakob Hutter’s letters. The first three cover relations, and conflicts between communities, or individuals within them. The fourth addresses the governor of Moravia after he drove the community from Auspitz, where they had lived peaceably and flourished. It differs greatly from the affection and pastoral tone of his other letters. He speaks of their desperate situation, living out in the open. And he warns the governor that he will fall under the Lord’s judgment if he doesn’t aid the people.

Needless to say, this letter made him persona non grata in moravia, and contributed to his decision to return to Tyrol. The last four letters are written from Tyrol to Moravia, urging their faithfulness, and increasingly expressing his affection for them in the face of the closing noose as the authorities pursue him. Having soaked himself in the Bible, the letters include many biblical references and sound not unlike the Apostle Paul.

The remainder of the book collects a variety of primary source documents regarding Hutter and the nascent Hutterite movement. First are the ‘Chronicles,” the first narratives of Hutterite history. These are followed by “Witnesses,” government accounts of the interrogation, often with torture, of Hutterites, including efforts to gain information about Hutter and other community leaders. “Hutterian Epistles” represent letters mentioning Jakob Hutter. “Governmental Correspondence” includes official communications about the effort to put a stop to the Anabaptist movement. Included is a lengthy ketter of instructions for the interrogation of Hutter after his arrest. “Additional Documents” include a miscellany of early documents including eulogies for Hutter. Document 2 lists twelve ordinances that describes the standards ordering Hutter’s communities. Timelines, maps, notes and indices are also provided.

This was an instance in which reading a collection of historical resources was not a slog. Hutter’s pastoral care is impressive as is the courage of all who die rather than renounce Anabaptism. Equally striking are the accounts of the communal life of the Hutterites. They persist to this day, along with the Bruderhof communities, a related Anabaptist communal movement. I’ve not said much of Katharina, but she is also impressive, not the least because she escaped captivity and eluded recapture for a time. Most of all, Maendel and Seiling have done a great service to Anabaptist scholarship in collecting these sources.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Markus Barth

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Cover image of "Markus Barth" by Mark R. Lindsey

Markus Barth, Mark R. Lindsay. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514001622) 2024.

Summary: The first biography of Markus Barth, drawn from access to his letters and papers, highlighting his theological legacy.

Karl Barth is one of the undisputed giants of theological studies in the twentieth century. Markus Barth, although a fine New Testament scholar, is far less known today. But Mark R. Lindsay may help change that with this biography of Markus Barth, the first to be published. Drawing on newly available archives of Markus Barth’s papers and private letters, he not only traces the life but also the theological legacy of this scholar.

The narrative begins with tracing a childhood on the move, as his father took different positions. We’re introduced to the unusual relationship between Karl, Nellie, and Charlotte von Kirschbaum, a;lthough it doesn’t appear to have intruded on Markus’ childhood. And we see the first glimmerings of Markus’ theological insights and independence in his decision to refuse to be confirmed. Lindsay traces Markus’ education, his courtship of Rose Marie, and his opposition to Nazism, nearly leading to arrest, before he fled to Edinburgh to complete his theological studies.

Like his father, he began his career as a pastor in the village of Bubendorf in Switzerland, where he served from 1940 until 1953. It was here that his distinctive views of Communion began to form–neither sacrament nor memorial. He arrived at similar views with regard to baptism, rejecting infant baptism. Subsequent chapters cover his teaching career at three very different U.S. institutions: Dubuque, the University of Chicago, and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. While none of these quite fit, he was deeply appreciated by students. Dubuque was too confessionally constricting. While Chicago afforded scholarly opportunities, the pluralism of the theological faculty led to questions of why he had been appointed. Pittsburgh was a better fit but he clashed with seminary leadership and some of the conservatism of Pittsburgh’s Presbyterian community.

In 1973, he returned to Basel, where he had completed his doctorate under somewhat controversial circumstances. These years marked the zenith of his scholarship with the publication of his two-volume Anchor Commentary on Ephesians. He also was increasingly engaged in Jewish-Christian dialogue efforts, in which he played something of a path-breaking role. Anticipating the problems Christians would face in our own day, he later ran into grief when he challenged Israeli treatment of Palestinians, even while supporting the State of Israel generally as well as the importance of Jewish-Christian dialogue.

One of the challenges of his later years was that his teaching and lecture travel hampered his scholarship, notably the completion of his work on Philemon (posthumously) and Colossians (unfinished). This was further exacerbated by declining health and he followed Rose Marie in death in 1994.,

Lindsay highlights three areas in which Barth left a theological legacy. The first was in New Testament scholarship. In contrast to his father, he was a biblical theologian who worked from rigorous exegesis to biblical themes. Second, his distinctive views on baptism and the Lord’s Supper extended his father’s work. He saw these as a witness rather than memorials or means of grace, celebrations of the work of Christ. Finally, Barth was so involved in Jewish-Christian efforts that he was named by one Jewish commentator as “chaside omit ha-olam” or one of “the righteous ones of the nations of the world.” He saw the Jews as the people of God, an identity shared by but not superseded by Christians.

What I also appreciate about this account is how Barth gave himself for his students and the lifelong friendships with many. He loved open evenings in his home where any question was fair game. He also made room for Rose Marie to shine in these conversation. I found myself wishing I’d known of him while he was in Pittsburgh. I heard other Pittsburgh Seminary professors speak, notably John Gerstner. How I wish I could have seen the two of them in conversation!

Mark Lindsay’s biography not only gave me an appreciation of Barth’s life. It reminded me of works by Barth sitting on my shelves, and others that might be worth exploring, particularly the Ephesian commentaries. The book includes a number of photographs as well as extensive lists of publications and bibliography, a gift for any interested in the work of this “son of Barth.”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: American Prometheus

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Cover image of "American Prometheus" by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

American Prometheus, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. Vintage Books (ISBN:  9780375726262) 2006.

Summary: A biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, focused on his leadership of the atomic bomb program and security clearance trial.

My birth and the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima occurred on the same day (although in different years). I’m in my eighth decade of living under a nuclear cloud. One of the scientists who helped make that possible was J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer led the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, from 1943 to 1945, that built the first bombs, including those dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Therefore, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s massive biography of Oppenheimer was one of those books I knew I would read sooner or later (though I will pass on the movie). They trace his early life and educational work, and early work in theoretical physics that led to appointments at Caltech, and eventually at Berkeley.

While at Berkeley in the mid-1930’s he expressed his developing social consciousness through associations with and support of organizations with Communist party ties. While likely not a party member, he had close friends who were among the scientists he worked with and others he associated with. One of them, Haakon Chevalier, would later cause him much grief. He also pursued an intimate relationship with psychotherapist and party member Jean Tatlock, who later committed suicide. His wife, Kitty Puening had previously been married to a man killed in the Spanish Civil War fighting for the Communists.

World War Two changed many things. The USSR became an ally. Intelligence, including warnings from Albert Einstein, revealed the Germans were working on an atomic bomb. Oppenheimer’s theoretical work with Ernest Lawrence made him a strong candidate to lead the bomb development program. By this time, he had severed ties to the Communist Party, but his past raised security issues. But investigations cleared him and he became director under Leslie Groves.

His fertile mind and quick grasp of the various challenges facing the teams of scientists made him an ideal director. Meanwhile, he paid assiduous attention to building the Los Alamos community, including cross-team seminars that facilitated teamwork and advances on the science front. But his past associations tripped him up. Haakon Chevalier made an approach, exploring whether Oppenheimer would consider sharing information with Soviet scientists. While he flatly refused Chevalier, his tardy reporting and attempts to cover for his friends, including his brother Frank, made him suspect, though he maintained his clearance and overall director, General Leslie Groves staunchly supported him.

The successful Trinity test of the bomb was significant in raising Oppenheimer’s own fears about using the weapon. He sought unsuccessfully to stop its use. The book raises evidence that the U.S. could have ended the war without using it or invading the mainland. I think that will continue to be debated. But Oppenheimer later had a meeting with Harry Truman “repenting” his own role, something Truman ever after despised.

Leaving Los Alamos, Oppenheimer accepted a position as director of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, perhaps the happiest situation he enjoyed. He advocated for open sharing of nuclear secrets (though maintaining security himself), hoping for an international order that would oversea and prevent nuclear war. He also opposed the H-bomb, although a member of the Atomic Energy Commission. Chairman Lewis Strauss, who was also on his board at Princeton, became an enemy. Eventually, when he was up for renewal of his security clearance, Strauss orchestrated a star-chamber-like hearing process with the result of denying that clearance. The father of the atomic bomb was excluded from all further nuclear work.

The biography portrays the complexity of Oppenheimer. He is both aloof and condescending and warm and sensitive, He both adored Kitty and yet engaged in several outside relationship. Intelligence mixed with lack of common sense. Most notably, we see how his enemies used the McCarthyism of the early 1950’s to smear him. Yet his character emerges as he comes to terms with his fate. But he was a victim of one of the uglier sides of American character.

Most of all, there is the bomb. Oppenheimer stood apart from many scientists in wrestling with the morality of what he had done. And he spoke out against the fundamental immorality and insanity of a nuclear arms race. His life exemplifies the inherent immorality of war-making. It implicates us in the taking of lives we would never personally choose to take. Bird and Sherwin’s biography serves as a mirror that makes us take a good look at ourselves.

Review: John Lewis: A Life

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Cover image of "John Lewis: A Life" by David Greenberg

John Lewis: A Life, David Greenberg. Simon & Schuster (ISBN: 9781982142995) 2024.

Summary: A biography tracing the work of John Lewis from non-violent civil rights activism to Congress.

One image is etched in my mind from the Civil Rights movement. It is John Lewis being bludgeoned by police at the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965. It was Lewis, not Dr. King at the head of the march that day. His skull was fractured. But five months later, he was at the signing of the Voting Rights Act, on August 6, 1965. The one event gave the needed impetus for the other. Bloody Sunday epitomized the life of John Lewis, which helps to explain why the annual commemorations were so important. Non-violent resistance. Unwillingness to back down. Love for one’s enemy. Surrendering his body to beatings and prison.

David Greenberg, in John Lewis: A Life, traces his childhood in rural Troy, his early call to preach, and enrollment in a Nashville Seminary. Greenberg recounts how Lewis heard Martin Luther King, Jr. speak on the philosophy of non-violence on the radio, was trained by James Lawson, and quickly became a leader of sit-ins at lunch counters across Nashville. From the Nashville Student Movement, he was called upon to lead the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and enlisted as a Freedom Rider. More confrontations with police and arrests followed. Then the March on Washington, where he gave one of the harshest addresses, even after “editing.” Greenberg covers his work during Freedom Summer to register voters in 1964, a leadup to the campaign in Selma in March of 1965.

Subsequently, SNCC experienced turmoil. In particular, factions developed questioning Lewis’s leadership and commitment to non-violence. Ultimately, this culminated in an election forcing Lewis out of leadership. Instead, the radical Stokely Carmichael took over. He worked for a time in New York, but the work and town didn’t fit. In a chapter titled “RFK,” Greenberg chronicles the work Lewis did with RFK and the successive assassinations of King and Kennedy.

In 1969, Lewis found his feet once more around mobilizing the vote, heading up the Voter Education Project, registering over four million voters. He followed that up with a brief stint in the Carter administration. In 1981, he won a seat on the Atlanta City Council, where he served until 1986. Then, Lewis turned another corner. At the urging of his wife, he ran for the open house seat in Georgia’s fifth District. Unfortunately, his old friend Julian Bond was also running. At first, polls favored Bond. But Lewis worked hard and used the rumors of Bond’s cocaine habit against him, challenging him to a drug test. Lewis won the election but lost the friendship.

The remainder of the book covers his congressional career. While Lewis represented his district well, he never became a political leader. Instead, he was a moral leader of the House. Greenberg describes his loyalty to the Clinton’s, especially during the Lewinsky affair. This caused him problems later. He supported Hilary in her run for president against a much younger Barack Obama. Under significant pressure to support Obama, the Clinton’s graciously released him from his commitment, an act which spoke well of them. Although late in support of Obama, Lewis campaigned vigorously. Later, Obama signed Lewis’s inaugural program “Because of you, John.”

Greenberg ends the book with Lewis’s final illness from pancreatic cancer, his fight, and last act before his final decline, to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza. Speaking of his illness, he said,  “I have been in some kind of fight – for freedom, equality, basic human rights – for nearly my entire life. I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now.”

Greenberg captures the resilience of John Lewis that only death could stop. He fought injustice without violence while never hating. He did not lose hope despite the persistence of racism. His final op-ed in the New York Times on the day of his funeral gave voice to that enduring hope, in the words “Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation.” Those words, and Greenberg’s biography are good sustenance for our time.