Citizen Thomas More and his Utopia by Russell Ames (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 417 which are of interest at that time. The book Is one which each of us should own and to which we should turn repeatedly to understand the intelligent, scientific, and complete approach to psychiatry and therefore to the understanding of man which Adolph Meyer developed. The Institute of Living, Hartford, Connecticut. RoBERT E. ARNOT, M.D. Citizen Thomwt More and his Utopia. By RussELL AMES. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Hl49. Pp. Q38. $3.50. Citizen Thomas lllore and His Utopia offers a new and important historical perspective on Thomas More and the Utopia. A number of exceptions may be taken to the book's main thesis, and there is room for controversy about semantic implications in some of Dr. Ames's evaluations . But these matters do not lessen the general value of the work. Dr. Ames's main contribution is historicaL He places the Utopia in its concrete historical context, and, in so doing, he illuminates the life of More in a way that could profitably be pursued by professional hagiographers . Dr. Ames generalizes his thesis in these words: Though it is true that the Utopia is somewhat anti-capitalist, both from the idealist-medieval and embryonic-socialist point of view, the core of the book is republican, bourgeois, and democratic-the result of More's experience as a man of business, as a politician, and as an Erasmian reformer. Nearly all the words in the quoted statement have a wide ra,nge of connotation for different readers, and we shall illustrate their meaning as Dr. Ames uses them. The term bourgeois might at first alarm an admirer of the Saint, but the word has quite a different implication for Dr. Ames than, let us say, for Leon Bloy. In leading to his thesis, the author follows the type of investigation that is to be found in Lily B. Campbell's Shakespeare's "Histories "'-Mirrors of Elizabethan Policy. Such investigation is founded on the historical fact that Renaissance social critics frequently wrote about their times under conditions of analogy. Thus Shakespeare is not writing his " histories " because of any passionate regard for the past, but rather because he wishes to comment, for those who have eyes and ears, upon the political conditions of Elizabeth's day. The Essex conspirators did not attend Shakespeare's Richard II because of medieval antiquarianism; they attended such a play because it was a political manifesto in terms of analogy. Richard II was turned toward Elizabethan policy and away from medieval history. More's Utopia was turned away from " Utopia " and faced very vividly the present state of 8 418 BOOK REVIEWS England. Dr. Ames shows how concrete a book the Utopia is; even its vision of a better world is strictly related to the historical facts and possibilities of the time. Utopia is not Utopian. It is reasonable to assume that every item of criticism in Utopia recalled to well informed readers precise events in current history, many of which may not be easy to identify today. I What was More's position in regard to capitalism? From the viewpoint of Dr. Ames, More's position was complex. More strongly criticized decadent feudalism " in the interests of the ' best ' aspects of rising capitalism, medieval and Renaissance." Capitalism is an ambivalent word. Obviously the medieval economic system, following in theory but not in practice Roman Canon Law, had been superseded by More's time. More's close relationship with the Mercers' Company (thoroughly investigated by Dr. Ames), his ambassadorial duties and missions were concerned with contemporary trade and economics. More knew too much about business to be a simple anti-capitalist doctrinaire. But a number of his observations show how far-sighted he was in this matter; he could foresee one direction that capitalism might, and did, take. Like Maritain in our own day, More was not interested in salvaging historical forms but rather in elucidating principles that could be implemented in their respective individuated historical contexts. As Dr. Ames points out, the Guilds were on their way out; More was not interested in Guild forms, but in Guild principles. Capitalism as a means of creating and exchanging wealth was an improvement...