The term ""statesman"" entered the English language during the
Renaissance as a result of the widespread return to the Greek and
Roman classics. Sir Thomas More, who brought his careful study of
Plato and Aristotle, Cicero and Augustine to bear upon his
political life, contributed most to the recovery of the ancient
Greco-Roman concept of the statesman. Throughout More's writings
and his actions one finds a consistent and principled approach to
statesmanship that emphasizes the free character of the human
person and integrates classical and Christian thought with the best
of England's common law tradition of self-rule. This study is the
first to examine More's complete works in view of his concept of
statesmanship, and, in the process, link More's humanism, his
faith, and his legal and political vocations into a coherent
narrative. In Part One Gerard B. Wegemer sets forth More's theory
of statesmanship, drawing heavily from the entire corpus of his
work. In the second part he presents More's understanding of
literature and applies this understanding to his book Utopia. In
Part Three he investigates the two most controversial events in
More's life: his treatment of heretics and his refusal to obey his
king. More presented a consistent defense of institutional
arrangements now taken as basic to all democratic government: rule
of law, division of power, separation of church and state, elected
representation, and protected forms of free and public
deliberation. He believed that the essential work of the statesman
is to draw upon the nation's deepest and longest-standing
consensus, as expressed in its literature and its laws, in order to
govern with the people's consent. More was convinced that law, not
individual persons, should rule. This book, which integrates the
literature, philosophy, history, and politics of the Renaissance,
will appeal across disciplines to scholars of early modern England
and to anyone fascinated by the life and times of St. Thomas More.
Gerard B. Wegemer is the author of Thomas More: A Portrait of
Courage (1995) and has written about More and his times for such
journals as Renascence, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Moreana, and The
Review of Politics. He holds master's degrees in political
philosophy and literature from Boston College and Georgetown
respectively, and a doctorate in English literature from Notre
Dame. He is associate professor of literature at the University of
Dallas, and he teaches and lectures regularly on St. Thomas More.
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""Professor Wegemer's book is an extraordinary work of
interpretation. The key to its success is a comprehensive grasp of
More's life and work, rooted in a profound sympathy for the man and
his goals. With a calm and confident hand, Wegemer sheds new light
on More's views of statesmanship and its requirements, on the inner
structure of his enigmatic and playful masterpiece Utopia, and on
the guiding conceptions of his practical political life. Rarely do
authors show such a capacity for leaping across the chasm of
culture and years to understand the vision that makes sense of a
man's life and thought.""-- Professor Christopher Wolfe, Department
of Political Science, Marquette University Table of Contents
Introduction I. More's Understanding of the Statesman's Work 1. Can
Reason Rule the Free? 2. First, Self-Rule 3. Ruling Citizens: What
Is Needed? II. Utopia: A Statesman's Puzzle 4. Literature and the
Acquisition of Political Prudence 5. Utopia 1 and 2: Dramatizing
Competing Philosophies of Life 6. Utopia 1: Ciceronian
Statesmanship 7. Utopia 2: Augustinian Realist III. Issues in
More's Career as Statesman 8. The Limits of Reason and the Need for
Law 9. Reform over Revolution: In Defense of Free
General
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