Benson Bobrick

I am glad I read this book, because i am now able to place Thomas more accurately throughout The War in his many different positions, ranks and battles. What I did not enjoy is the constant rationalizing, apologizing, and backtracking that Bobrick employs to defend Thomas in his conflicts with Grant and Sherman politically. I can see some truth in Bobrick's contentions and Sherman certainly has gone down a few pegs in my estimation, but the arguments and the outcomes become predictable and frankly, a little boring.… (meer)

I lingered over the beginning of the book, but after I got into the flow of the historical narrative, it went pretty quickly. Anyone who is interested in history and language may enjoy this.
I had a rudimentary knowledge of Henry VIII and William Tyndale, but this book expanded greatly on my knowledge of them and their context. Also, there were so many other key players of whom I knew virtually nothing other than their names (or at least, had forgotten since high school).

I think the thing that impressed itself on me the most is the changeability of people... literally less than a year passed between Tyndale's execution as a heretic and the formal approval by the king of Tyndale's Bible translation. This is CRAZY! When entities are convinced they're right (unless they change their minds, and then they're also right) and the only fixed compass point is the will of the powerful at any given moment, sanctioned, as they tell themselves, by God, no wonder justice is easily miscarried.

There are lots of comparisons between translations, and on a lighter note, I will end with Tyndale's rendering of Genesis 3:4: "Then said the serpent unto the woman, 'Tush, ye shall not die.'"

How very British… (meer)

I confess that I am a bit biased against this book. What was off-putting was an excessive amount of quotations from Elizabethan sources, including segments of Ivan's life where he was not interacting with English observers (e.g. his death). The sense I get is of an author who has limited specialization in English historical sources (it looks like a lot of the Elizabethan quotes come from an edited volume published in the 19th century), and wrote a book about the famous Russian tyrant relying on those and other translated sources. What results is a mostly confusing "just-the-facts" parade of schemers and religious nut jobs inflicting misery on Ivan, each other, and especially the people of Russia and Central Asia. I think I'd rather read a biography by a specialist who could examine primary sources in Russian.… (meer)

The life and times of Ivan IV of Russia. A painful childhood within a family of weak genetic stock produces a monster…a very intelligent monster, but a monster just the same. This book is as much about the history of Russia as it is about Ivan and I found this more interesting than Ivan's personal story. Here we learn about the original isolation of the Russ and their attempts to be taken seriously as a nation while Sweden & Denmark & Poland & Lithuania each strive to dominate Northern Europe. Even Elizabeth’s England is drawn into the conflict in an effort to secure the lucrative fur trade with Russia. The last section of the book, describing Ivan’s war with Poland was extremely captivating—from England through Scandinavia and onto Turkey and China, Ivan the Terrible’s last war came close to becoming the first world war. It’s not that the story is riveting, but it comes quite close at times.… (meer)