T&T Clark Newman and His Contemporaries

Review "Edward Short's Newman and His Contemporaries is that most intellectually satisfying phenomenon; a deeply-researched, beautifully-written and important book that answers all the questions it sets itself, and all that any reader may also ask. The Oxford Movement might not engage many people today, but in Victorian England it was an absolutely revolutionary concept and the author blows pure oxygen onto its almost-dead embers in recreating its crises and controversies. Moreover, the reader doesn't need to know anything about Tractarianism to enjoy the perceptive and witty essays covering the Cardinal's relations with such figures as Gladstone, Thackeray, Arnold, Clough and the Froudes."--Andrew Roberts, BBC History Magazine Books of the Year 2011 "In this well-researched book, Edward Short shows how Newman, far from being the self-absorbed introvert as some have claimed, had a wide circle of friends who benefited from his extraordinary powers of empathy. Newman and his Contemporaries is a useful introduction to this essential quality of the man and will send readers back not only to Newman's published works but to his wonderful letters."--Ian Ker, author of John Henry Newman: A Biography (1988) "Another Newman book? Well, yes, and a particularly fine one that explores Newman's relationships with the great ecclesiastical, literary, political, and journalistic figures of his time. Edward Short's close reading of Newman's vast correspondence also demonstrates just how many of our post-Vatican II arguments were anticipated in the 19th century among Newman and his interlocutors."--George Weigel, Christmas Books for 2011 "Newman and his Contemporaries is a charming blend of erudition, lively commentary and judicious selection of sources. Eavesdropping on heart-to-heart conversations with novelists and social critics, politicians and journalists, scientists and clergymen, Edward Short has succeeded in bringing alive some of Newman's most engaging correspondence and setting it within its proper historical framework. The Newman that emerges from this study confronts the modern reader on the burning issues of the times - both his times and ours - and captivates us by his subtlety of mind, his exquisite prose style and his genius for friendship."--Paul Shrimpton, Magdalen College School (Oxford), and author of A Catholic Eton? Newman's Oratory School (2005) "Newman and His Contemporaries is like a Victorian Dance to the Music of Time, except the characters are all real historical figures. Social historians, Spectator readers, literate people in general, young BXVI generation Catholics and those old enough to finish the sentence Introibo ad Altare Dei....will love it. This is a book to be taken on a summer holiday and read under a palm tree with a gin and tonic. Social histories can be boring and sag in the middle, but this one isn't. It's a soufflé that doesn't flop."--Tracey Rowland, Dean and Professor of Political Philosophy and Continental Theology at the John Paul II Institute (Melbourne) and author of Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI "Newman and his Contemporaries sets out to place Newman in context and in dialogue with a range of his contemporaries. Newman famously said that ‘a man's life is in his letters.' The 30 or so volumes of Newman's Letters and Diaries provide a significant quarry for Short's exploration... In its rich citations from Newman's correspondence "Newman and his Contemporaries" reminds us of Newman's skill as a pastoral theologian and theological apologist... Newman saw that there were hard questions for Anglicans to answer, with which we need to continue to wrestle-about authority, about the right discernment of development, and, fundamentally, about the nature of the Church. If this book provokes us to do this, then it will have achieved one of its purposes."--Geoffrey Rowell, Church Times Newman and His Contemporaries "is the best study of Newman since Ian Ker's magisterial biogr