Abraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat

“Bratt has done a marvelous job of setting Kuyper's multifaceted interests, activities, and ideas in their historical contexts. With wit and insight Bratt depicts Kuyper not only as a great man but also as a real person of his times, complete with faults and blind spots that Calvinists recognize as inevitable even among their saints.”

“James Bratt has written what can only be called the definitive biography of Abraham Kuyper. With engrossing scholarship and style, Bratt provides indispensable reading for anyone interested in postindustrial Christian social thought. . . . Will undoubtedly become a classic.”

“Abraham Kuyper was such a titanic figure in the Netherlands during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, such a volcano of prodigious energy and imagination in so many areas of life, that I have long assumed that his genius would elude capture by any biographer. James Bratt's biography, Abraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat, proves that I was mistaken. This is Kuyper—not always likable, but always astounding. And it's a page-turner besides.”

“At last! This is what many of us have been waiting for—a careful, detailed, and highly readable(!) biography of Kuyper in all of his human complexity. Jim Bratt has given us the comprehensive study of 'Father Abraham' that will serve English speakers for years to come.”

“Attentive readers of this landmark biography will come away learning a great deal about a noteworthy individual. They should also be in a much better position to reflect on vital questions of Christianity and education, church and state, Christian universalism and Christian particularism, and many more that remain of first-order importance still today, nearly a century after Kuyper passed away.”