John Henry Newman's legacy as a theologian, historian, and spiritual teacher presents itself to contemporary students through the inescapable prism of his person. Few theological writers of the modern era carry with them such a biographical pungency that even mature scholars (such as Frank M. Turner in his unfortunately tendentious 2002 biography) are lured by Newman the human being - even as they struggle to discern the coherence of Newman's thought. Rather than fight against this grain, or sequestering Newman's magnetic biography away in a preliminary "life of" chapter, Mark McIntosh harnesses the personal interest and intrigue of Newman's life in assisting students to get through the difficult features of Newman's thought. By proceeding through Newman's most enduring works chronologically, he can show the dramatic personal background and inner momentum that help to make sense of the cardinal's sometimes allusive style and his often cloaked polemical agenda - features that regularly make a deeper understanding of Newman quite elusive.
