Rufus Burrow's intellectual biography of Martin Luther King Jr. reopens a canon. Burrow offers his readers a nuanced perspective of King's intellectual journey, interrogating the field of “King studies” in ways that challenge traditional narratives. Burrow shows that King is more than the intellectual prodigy of Walter Rauschenbusch, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Mohandas K. Gandhi. Early studies about King, moreover, either labeled him merely a “social activist” or attributed his theological formation to white social gospel and personalist thinkers. Burrow argues that King is a “Man of Ideas” who learned early the outline of a faith that expressed itself in activism. Among the influences in his religious development were grandparents, parents, and professors at Morehouse College.

Extremist for Love has five parts. Parts One and Two explore the nonviolent and social gospel legacies found in King's family tree. He embraced the “academic” versions of these ideas in seminary. Parts Three and Four examine the leadership role models that King inherited in Montgomery, Alabama. Among those persons were Vernon Johns and “trailblazing” women leaders Jo Ann Robinson and Rosa Parks. Parts Four and Five consider Gandhi's impact on King's career and the education King received from the nonviolent strategies of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The final part also includes an invitation to consider the ways in which King's deep faith, discovered fully during the struggle for civil rights, informed his activism. This important book challenges and builds upon critical studies on King's legacy.