In this lucid work of deep and imaginative scholarship, Robert D. Priest integrates many of Renan's disparate identities by focusing on his most influential book, The Life of Jesus (1863). [ This] is the "biography" of that biography, beginning with its germination in Renan's mind, continuing through the travail of writing it, and culminating in its reception by both elite and popular audiences and its stunning commercial success ... Priest's fine-grained study successfully illuminates Renan's bestseller as a cultural icon that both reflected and shaped the mentality of its era. * Jan Goldstein, American Historical Review * absorbing ... a persuasive and consistently interesting book, which offers an excellent model for anyone writing [ about] controversial religious best-sellers * Hugh McLeod, Journal of Ecclesiastical History * Robert Priest's splendid study of Vie de Jésus ... uncovers many of the forces that quietly shaped Renan and his book, and in doing so should give biblical critics today a lively sense of what may well be influencing them even when they claim to be neutral and scientific in their work ... With admirable care, Priest builds up a convincing picture of what Renan wished to achieve in the Vie de Jésus and how the cultural politics of the Second Empire assured that it was a success. * Kevin Hart, H-France Review * Priest takes the reader deep inside Renan's complicated cultural, political and personal world; he emerges from these pages as savvy, intellectually and spiritually engaged, if at times unaware of his own ambiguous assertions. Priest's portrait is a substantive addition to the growing body of scholarship that complicates the intellectual and religious world of nineteenth-century France. * Sally Debra Charnow, Modern & Contemporary France * One of the great pleasures of Priest's approach is that he introduces us to a Renan we have not yet met in previous studies of the historian. This portrait is perhaps even more intimate than Renan's own autobiography in that it offers a well-documented window onto the intersection of Renan's personal and professional personae. Priest digs deep into Vie de Jésus, unafraid of broaching the complicated and sometimes unpleasant details therein, such as Renan's backward views on race and culture. His choice of a chronological and thematic organization of the chapters also guides the reader through his examination of letters and journals written by Renan and his contemporaries. Best of all, while the book is an engaging and even enjoyable read, Priest is careful to ground his assertions in fact, avoiding the biographical fantasy for which Renan's own historical writings were often criticized. * Erica Maria Cefalo, Nineteenth-Century French Studies * Priest's study of Ernest Renan's Vie de Jésus -- both its ideological foundations and its readers' reception -- presents a fresh look at the culture wars of nineteenth-century France. Through the analysis of an impressive body of readers' letters reacting to Renan's controversial publication, The Gospel According to Renan provides a rich and variegated portrait of French society that upsets the common understanding of the time as divided neatly between Catholic and positivist worldviews ... Through the study of the origins, content, reader reception, and legacy of a single publication, Priest provides a fascinating and nuanced study of a complex epoch in French history. * Scott Powers, Contemporary French Civilization * Priest's book is well written and very thorough. Like the object of its study, its field of investigation ranges beyond religious issues. Through its examination of cultural and political debates in late nineteenth-century France, it will be of interest to a wide variety of readers. * Edward Ousselin, French Studies * The author deals with the debates, acrimonious and otherwise, that followed publication, involving Renan directly as well as his defenders and adversaries. Priest also discusses Renan's audience that encompassed intellectuals, church people, and admirers whose religious and cultural lives were transformed by Renan and his Jesus, as well as Renan's legacy and the changes in nineteenth-and twentieth-century French and European religious sentiment that occurred due to Renan's life and work. * Joseph F. Byrnes, Catholic Historical Review * Based on a good knowledge of the secondary literature in English and French, and inspired by recent Anglo-American cultural historiography, Priest's Gospel According to Renan realizes its ambition of giving a cultural account of the impact of Vie de Jésus in France ... One must stress the value of Priest's Gospel According to Renan for anyone interested in French cultural history. * Nathalie Richard, History *
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