Few historical figures have been more important in modelling the ideal of impartial critical scholarship than Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469-1536). Yet, his critical scholarship, though beholden to no one, was not dispassionate. This book shows how Erasmus the scholar sought through his writings to promote the moral and religious renewal of Christian society. The author finds the genesis of the humanist's notion of a Christian republic of pious and learned individuals in his Burgundian, or Low Countries, roots. Erasmus's vision of reform, he argues sprang from a humanist tradition focusing on the importance of teaching (doctrina), a tradition from which Erasmus departed in his optimism about human nature and his deep suspicion of the powers that be. Amid the storms of Reformation controversy, Erasmus pruned back the dissimulation by which he had thought to convey different meanings to different readers, yet, in the end, he could not control the way his words were read. If Erasmus's scholarly ideal carries an enduring fascination, so too does his dilemma as a man of circumspection who would also be a reformer. James D. Tracy is the author of Holland Under Habsburg Rule and Financial Revolution in the Habsburg Netherlands.