{"title":"Michael Massing","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into Michael Massing's insightful explorations of American politics, media, and culture. Perfect for readers seeking sharp analysis and thought-provoking commentary on contemporary issues.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"fatal-discord-book-michael-massing-9780060517601","title":"Fatal Discord","description":"\u003cp\u003eNew York Times Notable Book of 2018\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLibrary Journal Best Book of 2018\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"[2017] saw a profusion of books about Martin Luther to mark the 500th anniversary of his posting the 95 Theses. Massing widens the lens wondrously, bringing in Erasmus, the great humanist foe of Luther, and showing how their rivalry set the course for much of Western civilization. Reviewing the book, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein applauds this 'inspired approach': 'Massing, a journalist, has produced a sprawling narrative around the rift between the two men, laying out the sociological, political and economic factors that shaped both them and Europe's responses to them, and tracing their theological disputes back to the earliest days of Christianity,' she writes. 'Though a massive amount of material is marshaled, Massing's journalistic skills keep the story line crisply coherent.'\"--New York Times\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eErasmus was the leading figure of the Northern Renaissance. At a time when Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael were revolutionizing Western art and culture, Erasmus was helping to transform Europe's intellectual and religious life, developing a new design for living for a continent rebelling against the hierarchical constraints of the Roman Church. When in 1516 he came out with a revised edition of the New Testament based on the original Greek, he was hailed as the prophet of a new enlightened age. Today, however, Erasmus is largely forgotten, and the reason can be summed up in two words: Martin Luther. As a young friar in remote Wittenberg, Luther was initially a great admirer of Erasmus and his critique of the Catholic Church, but while Erasmus sought to reform that institution from within, Luther wanted a more radical transformation. Eventually, the differences between them flared into a bitter rivalry, with each trying to win over Europe to his vision.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn Fatal Discord, Michael Massing seeks to restore Erasmus to his proper place in the Western tradition. The conflict between him and Luther, he argues, forms a fault line in Western thinking--the moment when two enduring schools of thought, Christian humanism and evangelical Christianity, took shape. A seasoned journalist who has reported from many countries, Massing here travels back to the early sixteenth century to recover a long-neglected chapter of Western intellectual life, in which the introduction of new ways of reading the Bible set loose social and cultural forces that helped shatter the millennial unity of Christendom and whose echoes can still be heard today. Massing concludes that Europe has adopted a form of Erasmian humanism while America has been shaped by Luther-inspired individualism.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49587912835345,"sku":"GOR011873461","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49591821598993,"sku":"GOR009836386","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50467373416721,"sku":"CIN0060517603G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50972304638225,"sku":"CIN0060517603A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51415395795217,"sku":"CIN0060517603VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0060517603.jpg?v=1751322744"},{"product_id":"fix-book-michael-massing-9780684809601","title":"The Fix","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50034390270225,"sku":"CIN0684809605VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52104368881937,"sku":"CIN0684809605G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0684809605.jpg?v=1751041336"},{"product_id":"fatal-discord-book-michael-massing-9780063143432","title":"Fatal Discord","description":"\u003cp\u003eA New York Times Notable Book\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eA deeply textured dual biography and fascinating intellectual history that examines two of the greatest minds of European history--Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther--whose heated rivalry gave rise to two enduring, fundamental, and often colliding traditions of philosophical and religious thought.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"A masterly work. Massing manages to juggle the complicated biographies and life work of both Erasmus and Luther while giving the reader a well-written, comprehensive background of pre-Reformation theology.\"-- Publishers Weekly (starred review)\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eErasmus of Rotterdam was the leading figure of the Northern Renaissance. At a time when Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael were revolutionizing Western art and culture, Erasmus was helping to transform Europe's intellectual and religious life, developing a new design for living for a continent rebelling against the hierarchical constraints of the Roman Church. When in 1516 he came out with a revised edition of the New Testament based on the original Greek, he was hailed as the prophet of a new enlightened age. Today, however, Erasmus is largely forgotten, and the reason can be summed up in two words: Martin Luther. As a young friar in remote Wittenberg, Luther was initially a great admirer of Erasmus and his critique of the Catholic Church, but while Erasmus sought to reform that institution from within, Luther wanted a more radical transformation. Eventually, the differences between them flared into a bitter rivalry, with each trying to win over Europe to his vision.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn Fatal Discord, Michael Massing seeks to restore Erasmus to his proper place in the Western tradition. The conflict between him and Luther, he argues, forms a fault line in Western thinking--the moment when two enduring schools of thought, Christian humanism and evangelical Christianity, took shape. A seasoned journalist who has reported from many countries, Massing here travels back to the early sixteenth century to recover a long-neglected chapter of Western intellectual life, in which the introduction of new ways of reading the Bible set loose social and cultural forces that helped shatter the millennial unity of Christendom and whose echoes can still be heard today. Massing concludes that Europe has adopted a form of Erasmian humanism while America has been shaped by Luther-inspired individualism.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50095750578449,"sku":"CIN0063143437G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50655037227281,"sku":"GOR014025490","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999234756881,"sku":"NIN9780063143432","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0063143437.jpg?v=1751290250"},{"product_id":"now-they-tell-us-book-michael-massing-9781590171295","title":"Now They Tell Us","description":"\u003cp\u003eMichael Massing describes the American press coverage of the war in Iraq as the unseen war, an ironic reference given the number of reporters in Iraq and in Doha, Qatar, the location of the Coalition Media Center with its $250,000 stage set. He argues that a combination of self-censorship, lack of real information given by the military at briefings, boosterism, and a small number of reporters familiar with Iraq and fluent in Arabic deprived the American public of reliable information while the war was going on.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMassing also is highly critical of American press coverage of the Bush administration's case for war prior to the invasion of Iraq: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUS journalists were far too reliant on sources sympathetic to the administration. Those with dissenting views--and there were more than a few--were shut out. Reflecting this, the coverage was highly deferential to the White House. This was especially apparent on the issue of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction . Despite abundant evidence of the administration's brazen misuse of intelligence in this matter, the press repeatedly let officials get away with it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOnce Iraq was occupied and no WMDs were found, the press was quick to report on the flaws of pre-war intelligence. But as Massing's detailed analysis demonstrates, pre-war journalism was also deeply flawed, as too many reporters failed to independently evaluate administration claims about Saddam's weapons programs or the inspection process. The press's postwar feistiness stands in sharp contrast to its submissiveness and meekness before the war--when it might have made a difference.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50383344894225,"sku":"CIN1590171292G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51602557534481,"sku":"CIN1590171292VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1590171292.jpg?v=1751374690"},{"product_id":"fix-book-michael-massing-9780520223356","title":"The Fix","description":"With a new preface Looking back on the 25-year war on drugs, Michael Massing offers a blistering critique of the politics and narrow-mindedness that have made our national drug policy a failure, and he proposes what must be done - stressing treatment over imprisonment - to begin to rescue addicts from the street and diminish the hold drugs have in this country.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50463282462993,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50463283478801,"sku":"CIN0520223357G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0520223357.jpg?v=1750846720"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-michael-massing.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}