There are few biographers of the scope, depth and reach of Emil Ludwig. His biographies of Napoleon and other world-famous figures have made him one of the most widely read, widely appreciated writers of our time. Like Francis Hackett he combines thorough scholarship with a gift for the dramatic. He is also a master of psychology: from the historical record he re-constructs human figures that move and speak as if they were living in our time.
The Son of Man
gives a new interpretation of the life of the Savior.
The following paragraphs from Ludwig's Foreword to
are the best description to this colorful biography: "The author tells the story as if the tremendous consequences of the life he describes were unknown to him—as they were unknown to Jesus...My aim is to convince those who regard the personality of Jesus as artificially constructed, that he is a real and intensely human figure...Only by telling the story of a heart, can a book approximate the fulfillment of such a task. What interests us here is...the world of his own feelings. The development of that world of self-feeling, the aims and motives of the leader, his struggle and weaknesses and disappointments; the great spiritual battle between self-assertion and humility, between responsibility and discouragement, between the claims of his mission and his longing for personal happiness—these must be described."