Social and cultural history Books

Trade Review'...sober and convincing...a useful and up-to-date survey of the subject.' N.J. Richardson, Journal of Hellenic St., 1984. 'Cette étude est bien informée, à la fois solide et circonspecte dans ses conclusions.' François Jouan, Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, 1984. '...the evidence of texts, inscriptions, and pictorial representations is most effectively utilized...' Greece & Rome, 1983. '...excellent, short essay...' B.A. Sparkes, The Classical Review, 1984.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe formula 'for the life of' is often found in votive inscriptions, cast in Aramaic and other languages, which originate from the Syrian-Mesopotamian desert and adjacent areas and which roughly date from the first three centuries A.D. They belong to objects like statues and altars that usually were erected in temples and other structures with a ritual or sacred function. The inscriptions establish a relationship between the dedicator and one or more beneficiaries, those persons for whose life the dedication was made. Since the social context evidently bears on both the meaning of the inscriptions as well as the status of the dedications, this volume deals with the nature of the relationships and the socio-religious function the dedications perform.Trade Review'This is a fine book, full of fact and intelligent interpretation.' John F. Healey, JSS, 1999.

Read more less

Book SynopsisPatricians, Professors, and Public Schools argues that the thinking behind efforts to reform American schools in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries emphasized two new ideas—that economic growth and the opportunity it created were more limited than had earlier been thought, and that popular aspirations should be revised downward accordingly. After discussing the thinking that reformers reacted against in the first chapter of the book, later chapters examine those most responsible for these new ideas, especially Felix Adler and John Dewey. These chapters argue that reformers' fears about the social dislocation stemming from economic growth makes the most sense of the educational redirection they promoted. This is a new interpretation of developments that have long been debated by American historians, and should be of interest to a wide variety of readers.

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn 1961 Robert van Gulik published his pioneering overview of Sexual Life in Ancient China. This edition of the work is preceded by an elaborate introduction by Paul Rakita Goldin assessing the value of Van Gulik’s volume, the subject itself, and its author. The introduction is followed by an extensive and up-to-date bibliography on the subject, which guides the modern reader in the literature on the field which appeared after the publication of Van Gulik's volume. One of the criticisms in 1961 regarded the Latin translations of passages deemed too explicit by Van Gulik. In this 2002 edition all Latin has for the first time been translated into unambiguous English, thus making the full text widely available to an academic audience.Trade Review"...brilliant and unexpectedly enlightening…" – Donald Holzman, in: T'oung Pao "...brings many precious and thorough statements on social, cultural and sexual habits of Ancient China…" – T. Pokora and J. Mellan, in: Archiv Orientální

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe archive of the Kong Koan constitutes the only relatively complete archive of a “diaspora” Chinese urban community in Southeast Asia. The essays in the present volume offer important and new insights into many different aspects of Overseas Chinese life between 1780-1965. The Kong Koan of colonial Batavia was a semi-autonomous organization, in which the local elite of Jakarta’s Chinese community supervised and coordinated its social and religious matters. During its long existence as a semi-official colonial institution, the Kong Koan collected sizeable Chinese archival holdings with demographic data on marriages and funerals, account books of the religious organisations and temples, documents connected with educational institutions, and the meetings of the board itself.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis volume explores the late antique countryside, looking at social and political life, landscape change, villas, monasteries, pilgrimage sites and the fate of rural temples. A section is devoted to recent survey work in Turkey and a comprehensive bibliographic essay frames the work. With contributions by Alexandra Chavarría, Tamara Lewit, Peter Sarris, Frank R. Trombley, Beatrice Caseau, John Mitchell, Marcus Rautman, Douglas Baird, Hannelore Vanhaverbeke, Femke Martens, Marc Waelkens, Jeroen Poblome, Joanita Vroom, Carla Sfameni, Lynda Mulvin, Joseph Patrich, Beat Brenk, Etienne Louis, Fabio Saggioro and Archie Dunn.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Contributors The Late Antique Countryside: An Introduction William Bowden and Luke Lavan Part One: Bibliographic Essay Archaeological Research on the Late Antique Countryside: A Bibliographic Essay Alexandra CHavarria& Tamara Lewit Part Two: Economic and Social Life Rehabilitating the Great Estate: Aristocratic Property and Economic Growth in the Late Antique East Peter Sarris Epigraphic Data on Village Culture and Social Institutions: an Interregional Comparison (Syria, Phoenice Libanensis and Arabia) Frank R. Trombley Part Three: Sacred Landscapes The Fate of Rural Temples in Late Antiquity and the Christianisation of the Countryside Beatrice Caseau The Archaeology of Pilgrimage in Late Antique Albania: The Basilica of the Forty Martyrs John Mitchell Part Four: Recent Rural Survey in Turkey and Adjacent Regions Valley and Village in Late Roman Cyprus Marcus Rautman Settlement Expansion on the Konya Plain, Anatolia: 5th-7th Centuries A.D. Douglas Baird Late Antiquity in the Territory of Sagalassos Hannelore Vanhaverbeke, Femke Martens, Marc Waelkens& Jeroen Poblome Late Antique Pottery, Settlement and Trade in the East Mediterranean: A Preliminary Comparison of Ceramics from Limyra (Lycia) and Boeotia Joanita Vroom Part Five: Villas in Late Antiquity Residential Villas in Late Antique Italy: Continuity and Change Carla Sfameni Late Roman Villas in Late Antique Italy: Continuity and Change Carla Sfameni Late Roman Villa Plans: The Danube-Balkan Region Lynda Mulvin Part Six: Rural Monasteries Monastic Landscapes Joseph Patrich Monasteries as Rural Settlements: Patron-dependence or Self-sufficiency? Beat Bank Part Seven: Landscape Change from Gaul to the Balkans A de-Romanised Landscape in Northen Gaul: The Scarpe Valley from the 4th to 9th Century AD Etienne Louis Late Antique Settlement on the Plain of Verona Fabio Saggioro Continuity and Change in the Macedonian Countryside, from Gallienus to Justian Archie Dunn Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn comparison to the Iberian Inquisitions little research has been done on the attitude of the Roman and Universal Inquisition to the Jews. The present volume deals with the relations between the Catholic Church, Jews and Judaism and the potential of the now accessible sources in the archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome for throwing new light on this intricate relationship. It starts with contributions by Kenneth Stow, Piet van Boxel, Hanna Węgrzynek, Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, Eleazar Gutwirth, Michael Studemund-Halévy and Sandra Neves Silva on key areas of the encounter between the Roman Church and the Jews such as papal policy, censorship and the Converso milieu. It moves on to presentations of archival material from the Congregations of the Roman Inquisition and of the Index by Claus Arnold, Antje Bräcker and John Tedeschi and concludes with sketches of ongoing and prospective research projects by Stephan Wendehorst, Ariella Lang and Hubert Wolf.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis volume deals with the development, implementation and maintenance of Scottish networks in Northern Europe from c.1600-1746. The book contains nine chapters divided into three parts of original and innovative archival reseach. After an introduction providing a theoretical overview of the subject, the first section focusses on the associations of kith and kin, place and nation and confessional loyalty tested in the numerous case studies throughout the book. Section two provides an analysis of Scottish networks in an economic context providing both quantitative and qualitative evidence to describe their success and failures in a variety of situations and locations. The final section provides three meticulously researched case studies of subversive networks including an espionage network operating in Poland on behalf of Sweden, the confessional network of the irenicist John Durie and rounded off with a review of the Jacobite network stretching across Russia, Sweden, Prussia and Rome.Trade Review‘...this is a good book, especially on religious and political aspects of the Scottish diaspora. It has interesting things to say about a wide range of topics, including identity, espionage, and ‘credit’ (in all senses of the word. The international perspective in both archival sources and secondary reading is exemplary. Written in a livlier and more informal style [...] Murdoch’s book is a readable and thoroughly worthwhile contribution to Scottish, British and Scandinavian History.’ R. A. Houston, Economic History Society, LIX, 2 (2006) ‘This book is more ambitious than the title suggests. It comprises the most extensive monograph survey of Scottish expatriate activity in post-Reformation Europe that has been attempted to date and, more generally. A significant reassessment of religious, economic and political aspects of the country’s history during the early modern period. [...] This is a very impressive, groundbreaking book, enjoyable to read, and one which should be a required text for undergraduate and postgraduate students of early modern Scottish history, and for those concerned with the web of connections linking the Stuart and early Hanovarian kingdoms to the Baltic and North Sea regions.’ David Worthington, English Historical Review, cxxi, 491, April 2006 ‘There are no doubts that Steve Murdoch’s book is a real milestone in research in Scottish, British and European history. Our knowledge of the inner workings of both the emigration from Scotland and Scottish commercial activity has been significantly enriched. … In short, the author has done excellent work to explain how a small nation from the outskirts of Europe so significantly influenced its early modern epoch. Last but not least, the book is not only insightful, but well written and entertaining to read.’ Waldemar Kowalski, Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce, 2006 and also History Scotland, vol. 6, no.1, Jan/Feb 2006 'A recent trickle of books linked to the 1707 Union will doubtless become a flood next year when the tercentenary is marked. Despite much over-hyping, however, none of those so far published can match Steve Murdoch’s Network North: Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Associations in Northern Europe 1603-1746 (Brill £100), a truly path-breaking study of Scotland’s long-standing forgotten links with the continent and a wonderful example of what can be achieved by several years of sustained research in home and overseas archives. Tom Devine, The Herald, 2 December 2006. Review of the books of the year.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements .. ix Abbreviations .. xi Introduction .. 1 SECTION ONE: NETWORK LINKAGES 1. Kin Networks .. 13 2. Networks of Place, Region and Nation .. 49 3. Confessional Networks .. 84 SECTION TWO: COMMERCIAL NETWORKS 4. Pedlars, Merchant and Consular Networks .. 127 5. Manufacturing Networks .. 170 6. Covert Commercial Networks .. 207 SECTION THREE: SUBVERSIVE NETWORKS 7. Espionage and the ‘Subversive Network’ .. 251 8. Subverting Confessionalism: The Network of John Durie, 1628–1654 .. 280 9. Jacobite Networks in the North 1715–1750 .. 313 Conclusion .. 349 Illustrations Appendix A: Documents .. 355 Appendix B: The Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft .. 367 Bibliography .. 375 Index .. 403

Read more less

Book SynopsisCette première édition critique d'un manuscrit écrit en arabe et mandinka focalise l'importance des communautés mandinka et jakhanké dans la construction et la préservation de la mémoire collective de l' "empire" païen du Kaabu en Sénégambie. This is the very first scholarly publication of an arabographic manuscript in Mandinka language revealing also the importance of the Mandinka and Jakhanka clerical diaspora in the making of the history of the pagan "empire" of Kaabu in the Senegambia.Table of ContentsTABLE DES MATIÈRES Editors’ introduction Remerciements L’orthographe des noms et notions en langues étrangères Liste des abréviations Introduction Chapitre 1 : Les versions du texte et leur transmission écrite et orale Chapitre 2 : Les versions écrites et orales du Ta:rikh Mandinka présentées en colonnes Chapitre 3 : Sujets mythiques et historiques du Ta:rikh Mandinka (interprétations et commentaires comparés) Chapitre 4 : Contextes de production et de transmission des livres de Bijini : historiographie et discours social dans un village musulman au pays des Sòoninkee du Kaabu et du Badoora Tableaux Images Cartes Ta:rikh Mandinka : La reproduction de deux manuscrits arabes en possession de al-Hajj Ibrahiima « Koobaa » Kasama – MS A (18 pp), MS B (35 pp) Glossaire des anthroponymes et toponymes et des termes en mandinka et autres langues Bibliographie Index des auteurs cités

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book is the analysis of the civilizational and historical context of the development of the Great Modern Revolutions; their relations to modernity, to the civilization of modernity, and to the development of multiple modernities; and the fate of revolutionary symbolism and dynamics in modern regimes, in the continually changing civilization of modernity, its dynamics and tribulations.Trade Review'... this is an important work in historical and comparative sociology that should be read by those seeking to understand both the structural causes of revolutions and the way the modern world came to be as it is.' S.C. Ward, Western Connecticut State UniversityTable of ContentsPreface Part I - The Great Revolutions and the Origins and Crystallization of Modernity: Some Comparative Observations Introduction Chapter 1 - The Historical and Civilizational Frameworks of the Great Revolutions Chapter 2 - The Distinctive Characteristics of the Revolutionary Processes and Ideologies PART II - The "Causes" and Historical - Civilizational Frameworks of Revolutions Chapter 3 - Structural and Social Psychological Causes Chapter 4 - The Historical Settings - The Contradictions of “Early Modernity” Chapter 5 - The Civilizational Frameworks of the Great Revolutions - The Axial Civilizations Part III - The Variability of Axial Civilizations and Political Dynamics – The Distinctiveness of the Revolutionary Process Chapter 6 - "Other-worldly" Civilizations – The Hindu Civilization Chapter 7 - The Political Dynamics in "this-worldly" Civilization – the Chinese Confucian Political Order Chapter 8 - Monotheistic Civilizations — Islam Chapter 9 - Christian Civilizations – the European Complex Chapter 10 - A Comparative excursus: Japan – the Non-Axial Revolutionary Revolutions and Concluding Remarks Conception of social orders; access to the political order and political dynamics Part IV - Cosmological Visions, Modes of Regulation and Revolutionary Potentials: Political Dynamics in Axial Civilizations Chapter 11 - Revolutionary Potentials in Axial Civilizations Chapter 12 - Cosmological Visions, Modes of Regulation, and Political Dynamics in Imperial and Imperial-Feudal Societies Chapter 13 - Cosmological Visions, Modes of Regulation, and Political Dynamics in Patrimonial Regimes Chapter 14 - Concluding Observations – The "Causes", Historical Contexts and Civilizational Frameworks of Revolutions Part V – The Outcomes of Revolutions Chapter 15 - The Outcomes of Revolutions - The Crystallization of the Political and Cultural Programs of Modernity Chapter 16 - The Outcomes of Revolutions - The Variability of Revolutionary Symbolism in Modern Societies – Preliminary Indications Chapter 17 - The New Setting - Changes in the Modes of the Model of the Nation and Revolutionary State

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book analyzes the role of oral stories in Chinese witch-hunts. Successive chapters deal with the implications of Chinese versions of the Little Red Riding Hood story; the use of parts of the adult human body, children and foetuses, to draw out their life-force; attacks by mysterious creatures, causing open wounds, suffocation, the loss of hair and the like; the presence of a Drought Demon in the corpses of recently deceased women; and finally the emperor forcibly recruiting unmarried women for his harem. Of interest to historians and anthropologists working on oral traditions, folklore and witch-hunts (also from a comparative perspective), but also to those working on anti-Christian movements and the intersection of popular fears and political history in China.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis collection of historical studies deals with the multiple connections between the history and culture of the Jews of the Netherlands from the beginning of the seventeenth century until the period after the Holocaust, and phenomena and processes that distinguish the history of the Jewish people in the modern period. The Jews of the Netherlands were not only nourished by the cultural creativity of the great Sephardi and Ashkenazi centers, East and West, but also at various stages they served as a source of inspiration for Jews elsewhere in the Jewish Diaspora. The articles of this volume examin the influence of general Jewish history on that of the Jews of the Netherlands and focus on events and processes that highlight the significance of of Dutch Jewry for modern Jewish culture.Table of ContentsCONTENTS Bernard D. Cooperman Amsterdam from an International Perspective: Tolerance and Kehillah in the Portuguese Diaspora Adam Sutcliffe The Boundaries of Community: Urban Space and Intercultural Interaction in Early Modern, Sephardi Amsterdam, and London Yosef Kaplan Amsterdam, the Forbidden Lands, and the Dynamics of the Sephardi Diaspora Jonathan Schorsch Mosseh Pereyra de Paiva: An Amsterdam Portuguese Jewish Merchant Abroad in the Seventeenth Century Harm den Boer Amsterdam as “Locus” of Iberian Printing in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Gary Schwartz The Temple Mount in the Lowlands Michael Studemund-Halévy The Persistence of Images: Reproductive Success in the History of Sephardi Sepulchral Art Evelyne Oliel-Grausz Patrocinio and Authority: Assessing the Metropolitan Role of the Portuguese Nation of Amsterdam in the Eighteenth Century Jonathan Israel Philosophy, Deism, and the Early Jewish Enlightenment (1655–1740) Shlomo Berger Yiddish Book Production in Amsterdam between 1650–1800: Local and International Aspects Hilde Pach “In Hamburg a High German Jew Was Murdered”: The Representation of Foreign Jews in the Dinstagishe un Fraytagishe Kuranten (Amsterdam, 1686–1687) Avriel Bar-Levav Amsterdam and the Inception of the Jewish Republic of Letters Stefan Litt Ashkenazi-Dutch Pinkassim as Sources for Studying European-Jewish Migration: The Cases of Middelburg and The Hague in the Eighteenth Century Gérard Nahon The Hague, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Jerusalem: David de Pinto and the Jesiba Magen David, 1750–1767 Shalom Sabar From Amsterdam to Bombay, Baghdad, and Casablanca:The Infl uence of the Amsterdam Haggadah on Haggadah Illustration among the Jews in India and the Lands of Islam Irene E. Zwiep A Maskil Reads Zunz: Samuel Mulder and the Earliest Dutch Reception of the Wissenschaft des Judentums Bart Wallet Dutch National Identity and Jewish International Solidarity: An Impossible Combination? Dutch Jewry and the Signifi cance of the Damascus Affair (1840) Rivka Weiss-Blok Jewish Artists Facing Holland Benjamin Ravid Alfred Klee and Hans Goslar: From Amsterdam to Westerbork to Bergen Belsen Evelien Gans Next Year in Paramaribo: Galut and Diaspora as Scene-changes in the Jewish Life of Jakob Meijer Elrud Ibsch Writing against Silence. Jewish Writers of the Generation-After in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and France: A Comparison David Weinberg Patrons or Partners? Relations between the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Dutch Jewish Community in the Immediate Postwar Period Manfred Gerstenfeld International Aspects of the Restitution Process in the Netherlands at the End of the Twentieth Century

Read more less

Book SynopsisPrivacy is often considered a modern phenomenon. Early Modern Privacy: Sources and Approaches challenges this view. This collection examines instances, experiences, and spaces of early modern privacy, and opens new avenues to understanding the structures and dynamics that shape early modern societies. Scholars of architectural history, art history, church history, economic history, gender history, history of law, history of literature, history of medicine, history of science, and social history detail how privacy and the private manifest within a wide array of sources, discourses, practices, and spatial programmes. In doing so, they tackle the methodological challenges of early modern privacy, in all its rich, historical specificity. Contributors: Ivana Bičak, Mette Birkedal Bruun, Maarten Delbeke, Willem Frijhoff, Michael Green, Mia Korpiola, Mathieu Laflamme, Natacha Klein Käfer, Hang Lin, Walter S. Melion, Hélène Merlin-Kajman, Lars Cyril Nørgaard, Anne Régent-Susini, Marian Rothstein, Thomas Max Safley, Valeria Viola, Lee Palmer Wandel, and Heide Wunder.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Illustrations Notes on the Editors Notes on the Contributors 1 Past Privacy  Lars Cyril Nørgaard 2 Towards an Approach to Early Modern Privacy: The Retirement of the Great Condé  Mette Birkedal Bruun Part 1: Approaching Notions of Privacy and the Private 3 Considering ‘Privacy’ and Gender in Early Modern German-Speaking Countries  Heide Wunder 4 ‘Privé’ and ‘Particulier’ (and Other Words) in Seventeenth-Century France  Hélène Merlin-Kajman 5 How to Approach Privacy without Private Sources? Insights from the Franco-Dutch Network of the Eelkens Merchant Family around 1600  Willem Frijhoff 6 Early Modern Swedish Law and Privacy: A Legal Right in Embryo  Mia Korpiola Part 2: Crossing the Thresholds of Privacy and the Private 7 The Moment of Communion  Lee Palmer Wandel 8 How to Make Exemplarity with Secret Virtues: Funeral Sermons and Their Challenges in Early Modern France  Anne Régent-Susini 9 Entering the Bedroom through the Judicial Archives: Sexual Intimacy in Eighteenth-Century Toulouse  Mathieu Laflamme 10 Public and Private in Jewish Egodocuments of Amsterdam (ca. 1680–1830)  Michaël Green Part 3: Secrecy, Knowledge, and Authority 11 The Paradox of Secrecy: Merchant Families, Family Firms, and the Porous Boundaries between Private and Public Business Life in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe  Thomas Max Safley 12 Chops and Chamber Pots: Satire of the Experimental Report in Seventeenth-Century England  Ivana Bičak 13 Dynamics of Healer-Patient Confidentiality in Early Modern Witch Trials  Natacha Klein Käfer 14 Examination Essays, Paratext, and Confucian Orthodoxy: Negotiating the Public and Private in Knowledge Authority in Early Seventeenth-Century China  Hang Lin Part 4: Spaces and Places of Privacy and the Private 15 Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as Artisans of the Heart and Home in Manuscript MPM R 35 “Vita S. Joseph beatissimae Virginis sponsi” of ca. 1600  Walter S. Melion 16 Privacy and Exemplarity in Gianlorenzo Bernini’s Cornaro Chapel  Maarten Delbeke 17 Making Private Public: Representing Private Devotion in an Early Modern Funeral Sermon  Lars Cyril Nørgaard 18 Secret Routes and Blurring Borders: The New Apartment of Giuseppe Papè di Valdina (Palermo, 1714–1742)  Valeria Viola 19 What Lies between the Public and the Secret?  Marian Rothstein Index Nominum

Read more less