Gareth Evan Gollrad received his Ph.D. in French Literature from the University of Chicago. He has translated a number of literary, critical, and philosophical works from French into English.
“. . . a warm and largely admiring portrait of a king in whom power
and goodness do indeed form two sides of the same coin. . . . Le
Goff’s Louis is cheerful, ardent, devout, intelligent but
unintellectual, skillful yet uncomplicated, a man in tune with his
age but able to transcend at least some of its limitations. . . .
[T]his is a rich and generous book, crammed with a lifetime’s
learning.” —The New York Review of Books
“Jacques Le Goff’s brilliant biography, Saint Louis, came out in
French in 1996, and is now published in a readable English
translation. Its publication gives Anglophones a book to set beside
W.C. Jordan’s Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade (1979) and
Jean Richard’s Saint Louis (1983, translated in 1992). . . . Le
Goff excels in his knowledge of the biographical sources, which he
subjects to close analysis, against the background—Le Goff’s home
territory—of European mentalités.” —London Review of Books
“More than simply a biography of Louis IX of France, this
magisterial work by a member of the Annales School of
historiography is an examination of the historian's craft. . . . Le
Goff argues convincingly that Louis, while still a medieval figure,
was also one of the first moderns. He provides the scholarly
apparatus lacking in Jean Richard's Saint Louis, the Crusading King
of France . . . highly recommended for academic and larger public
libraries.” —Library Journal
“In a massive piece of scholarship, Le Goff, doyen of French
medievalists, plays the sleuth whose work results in more
contradictions than clarity in the search for an integration of the
three personae—king, saint, and man—of Louis IX (1214–1270). . . .
Resolving to live with an inherently unstable and distorted
historical figure hovering somewhere between memory, history, and
legend, Le Goff thereby raises important questions about defining
historical authenticity. Gollrad’s translation nicely preserves the
lively and intimate prose of the French original (1996).”
—Choice
“Louis lives and walks through these pages. What Le Goff has given
us is more than a biography; it is a work of literature. . . .
Given the length of this book, many will be intimidated and will
not take up its challenge. That is a pity, for Le Goff has much to
offer here. There is no chapter that does not contain information
and ideas that deserve to be discussed further.” —The Catholic
Historical Review
“. . . Le Goff interweaves insightful and illuminating reflections
on Louis’ personality. This interweaving of person, structures and
representation takes Le Goff beyond the established historiography
of Louis IX . . . [and] demonstrates how the historical biographer
can legitimately evoke personality and psychology in a wider
account of structures and discourses. . . it is a seminal text, and
this welcome translation will render it available to a wider
audience.” —English Historical Review
“Historical revisionism has left the reputation of the saint king
untarnished. And that is because he really was a man of
extraordinary piety. He believed that the crown of France was given
to him by God, who would hold him accountable for it. Le Goff’s
history of Louis, originally published in 1996 and now translated
into English, is probably the most complete available.” —First
Things
“Le Goff’s Saint Louis is now and will serve for a long time as a
valuable reference tool and source of inspiration for the study of
Louis IX in English.” —The Medieval Review
“The publication of Jacques Le Goff’s massive study of the life of
Saint Louis in 1996 . . . marks the clearest illustration of the
marrying of annalist methodology to the traditional biographical
genre. The solid translation of this work into English by Gareth
Evan Gollrad provides an opportunity to consider again the
strengths and limitations of annalist biography.” —American
Historical Review
“Gareth Evan Gollrad’s imposing . . . translation is an accurate
and lucid rendition of Le Goff’s original work, complete with
genealogical charts and maps . . . Saint Louis is no mere
biography, rather it is an exploration of the politics and society
of thirteenth-century France, which shaped, and were shaped by,
Louis IX, in life and in death.” —The Journal of the Ecclesiastical
History
“. . . what Le Goff has accomplished is more than what will
undoubtedly be considered the definitive biography of St. Louis; he
has established a standard against which other biographies will be
measured. Saint Louis will be read and reread not only as a
monograph (or perhaps three-in-one, a monographical trinity) but
also as an indispensable reference book.” —The Historian
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