Description:
A NEW YORKER BOOK OF THE YEAR
An extraordinary work of revisionist history that centers Africa in the life of one of our greatest philosophers: "Excellent, short, and highly readable.... Traces a grittier story of a life lived almost entirely in a small area of what is now eastern Algeria, where Augustine's local origins and experience profoundly shaped both his life and his thought. Conybeare's argument is that because of his contributions to the genres of philosophy, autobiography, and Christian theology, 'a core strand of the culture that Europe claims as its own stems from Africa." --Josephine Quinn, New York Review of Books
Publishers Weekly - Fall Preview Top 10 [Religion and Spirituality]
Brief description: Catherine Conybeare, a renowned classicist, is the first woman to write a biography of Augustine since journalist Rebecca West nearly a century ago. Reinterpreting the writings of Augustine and his contemporaries has formed the heart of her scholarly work. She has received awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others. She is Leslie Clark Professor in the Humanities at Bryn Mawr College and lives in Pennsylvania.
Review Quotes: This biography of St. Augustine casts the philosopher not only as a theologian who profoundly shaped Christian orthodoxy but also as a person indelibly marked by his status as an African in the Roman Empire.... Conybeare... intertwines learned exegesis with examples of Augustine's human idiosyncrasies, offering illuminating analyses of the philosopher's seminal texts and ideas--including his theory of original sin--and of the role that his heritage played in his self-conception.--The New Yorker, "Best Books of the Year"