Calvin: A Biography, by Bernard Cottret. Tr. M. Wallace McDonald

Calvin: A Biography, by Bernard Cottret. Tr. M. Wallace McDonald. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000. Pp. xv + 376. $28 (cloth). [Reviewed by the editor.] From a French historian who is neither a theologian nor a Calvinist, we have a new biography of John Calvin that is outstanding. It gives insight into the man John Calvin without resorting to miserable psychologizing. "Thin as a lath," writes Cottret of Calvin, contrasting him with his fat foe, Perrin, "(he) said only what he knew, and detested...