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'Curiosity' and 'wonder' are topics of increasing interest and importance to Renaissance and Enlightenment historians. Conspicuous in a host of disciplines from history of science and technology to history of art, literature, and society, both have assumed a prominent place in studies of the Early Modern period. This volume brings together an international group of scholars to investigate the various manifestations of, and relationships between, 'curiosity' and 'wonder' from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Focused case studies on texts, objects and individuals explore the multifaceted natures of these themes, highlighting the intense fascination and continuing scrutiny to which each has been subjected over three centuries. From instances of curiosity in New World exploration to the natural wonders of 18th-century Italy, Curiosity and Wonder from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment locates its subjects in a broad geographical and disciplinary terrain. Taken together, the essays presented here construct a detailed picture of two complex themes, demonstrating the extent to which both have been transformed and reconstituted, often with dramatic results.
This book makes two distinctive contributions to one of the most fundamental debates in modern European history. First, it presents readable and judicious accounts of the events and decisions directly precipitating the outbreak of war in each of the main belligerent countries; second, it assesses the role of public opinion and popular mood in determining and responding to the `July Crisis' of 1914. With a list of contributors who are all distinguished in different aspects of the subject, this stimulating survey covers the historiography of the immediate causes of the war, and includes new reflections on the character of the official and unofficial `mentalités' during the last weeks of peace. Contributors: Sir Michael Howard, Zbynek Zeman, R. J. W. Evans, D. W. Spring, Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, Richard Cobb, and Michael Brock.
These essays, by the leading historian of the Austro-Hungarian empire, explore the political and religious history of the Habsburg lands. They also describe key aspects of the evolution towards modern statehood and national awareness in Central Europe over more than two centuries of cultural and social transition.
"This fine collection on competing political loyalties in the late Habsburg Monarchy is framed by clear research questions.The dynasty faced formidable competitors in its own crownlands, cities and villages. [This volume] presents this competition in vibrant and varied case studies. From it readers will take a sampling of some of the best recent scholarship on the Habsburg Monarchy." - Slavonic and East European Review "Any future discussion on the last years of the Habsburg Monarchy's political history should build on this collection's significant achievements whether the point of departure is the monarchy's ultimate failure or a decidedly a-teleological perspective...It is not a book that ...
This was originally a two volume set which is now bound as one. Here is presented an investigation of the nature of the earliest extant records of the supposed communication with angels and spirits of John Dee (1527-1608) with the assistance of his two mediums or 'scryers', Barnabas Saul and Edward Kelly. Volume 2 of this work is a transcription of the records in Dee's hand contained in Sloane MS 3188, which has been transcribed only once before, by Elias Ashmole in 1672. Volume 1 is an introduction and thorough commentary to the text which is primarily explaining its many obscurities. The author describes the physical state of the manuscript and its history then continues with a biography o...
Beyond the Barricades is an original study of government after the 1848 revolutions. It focuses on the state of Prussia, where a number of conservative ministers sought to learn lessons from their experiences of upheaval and introduce a wave of reform in the 1850s. Using extensive archival research, the work explores Prussia's entry into the constitutional age, charting initiatives to transform criminal justice, agriculture, industry, communications, urban life, and the press. Reform strengthened contact with the Prussian population, making this a classic episode of state-building, but Beyond the Barricades seeks to go further. It makes a case for taking notice of government activity at this particular juncture because the measures endorsed by conservative statesmen in the 1850s sought to remove the feudal intermediaries that had lingered long into the nineteenth century and replace them with an array of government institutions, legal regimes, and official practices. In sum, this book recasts the post-revolutionary decade as a period which saw the transition from an old to a new world, pivotal to the making of modern Prussia and ultimately, modern Germany.
Edmund Campion: A Scholarly Life is the response, at long last, to Evelyn Waugh’s call, in 1935, for a ’scholarly biography’ to replace Richard Simpson's Edmund Campion (1867). Whereas early accounts of his life focused on the execution of the Jesuit priest, this new biography presents a more balanced assessment, placing equal weight on Campion’s London upbringing among printers and preachers, and on his growing stature as an orator in an Oxford riven with religious divisions. Ireland, chosen by Campion as a haven from religious conflict, is shown, paradoxically, to have determined his life and his death. Gerard Kilroy here draws on newly discovered manuscript sources to reveal Campi...
Fin-de-siècle Vienna remains a central event in the birth of the century's modern culture. Our understanding of what happened in those key decades in Central Europe at the turn of the century has been shaped in the last years by an historiography presided over by Carl Schorske's Fin de Siècle Vienna and the model of the relationship between politics and culture which emerged from his work and that of his followers. Recent scholarship, however, has begun to question the main paradigm of this school, i.e. the "failure of liberalism." This volume reflects not only a whole range of the critiques but also offers alternative ways of understanding the subject, most notably though the concept of "critical modernism" and the integration of previously neglected aspects such as the role of marginality, of the market and the larger Central and European context. As a result this volume offers novel ideas on a subject that is of unending fascination and never fails to captivate the Western imagination.
This bibliography, first published in 1957, provides citations to North American academic literature on Europe, Central Europe, the Balkans, the Baltic States and the former Soviet Union. Organised by discipline, it covers the arts, humanities, social sciences, life sciences and technology.