What connects a small boy, his mouth taped shut in kindergarten for supposedly having bitten another child, with a world-renowned expert in neo-Platonism, shut out of his own teaching institute’s car park in Rome? Is there a special providence in the fall of a crane’s hook only a foot in front of a young scholar’s walk outside Trinity College, Cambridge? In All of a Piece, John Rist asks what makes a human life a single, meaningful whole, rather than a disconnected collection of episodes. Answering this question takes him and his readers on an often hilarious, and sometimes moving, international journey—one with its own, hidden, coherence. His life story, interwoven with intellectual passion and rich personal experience, is a compelling narrative offering insight and inspiration that transcend disciplinary boundaries.
Praise
“This grittily realistic and sharply observant account of a life, moving as it does through experience on six continents, is equally attuned to the personal, the political, and the intellectual.”—AIDAN NICHOLS OP, author of The Thought of Pope Benedict XVI and The Shape of Catholic Theology
“In an age of fractured identities and moral disorientation, All of a Piece dares to ask whether a life can be—not seamless—but meaningfully whole. Rich in historical witness, philosophical insight, and cultural critique, this remarkable memoir offers a compelling portrait of a lifelong pursuit of truth and integrity.”—FR. ANTONIO MALO, professor of Philosophical Anthropology at the Pontifical Università della Santa Croce (Rome)
“In a series of vivid sketches, John Rist recalls a childhood in blitz-battered London, the decidedly mixed blessings of life at a ‘minor’ British public school, national service duty in Iraq as an electronic snoop, running the gauntlet set by post-war Cambridge classicists, a lightning climb up the rungs of the academic ladder in Toronto, and subsequent academic appointments in Aberdeen, Jerusalem, Rome, and Washington, not to mention an induction as a tribal chieftain in Nigeria and dozens of other such adventures around the globe.”—JOHN C. MCCARTHY, associate professor and dean emeritus at Catholic University of America, Department of Philosophy
“The author exemplifies those who have fought unceasingly against the present malaise in academe, which he identifies as ‘an ideological denial of truth.’ His own development can be traced primarily through two classical figures, Plato and Plotinus, and their witness to the solidity of moral judgment. This led him on from a non-religious humanism to the transcendent in its personal form, and thereby to the Catholic Church. From this perspective he has taken on many unpopular subjects in the secular and religious worlds. This is a book to be very highly recommended.”—JOHN BEAUMONT, author of The House With a Hundred Gates: Catholic Converts Through the Ages
About the Author
John Rist, an “Essex man” born in 1936 and educated at Brentwood School and Trinity College, Cambridge, has taught Classics and Philosophy at the University of Toronto, the University of Aberdeen, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Istituto Patristico Augustinianum in Rome, and the Catholic University of America. He has published 20 books and more than 100 articles, mainly on Ancient Philosophy, Patristics, and Ethics, the most recent being What is a Person? and Infallibility, Integrity and Obedience. He has been married to Anna for 65 years and has four children. He became a Catholic in 1980.
