Search results for ""Author Edward Muir""
Johns Hopkins University Press Sex and Gender in Historical Perspective: Selections from Quaderni Storici
How we did the "fallen" women of Bologna regain their lost honor as wives or nuns? Why did the church need to control the "quasi-magical" power of female fertility? What did working women do to transform the factory environment-- as well as their social identity? In the microstoria of Italian scholars, good stories make even better history. "Sex and Gender in Historical Perspective"-- the inaugural volume of Selections from Quaderni Storici-- looks at sexual mores and gender roles in European social history of popular culture, these scholars present a broad and highly original view of human history. Taking a microhistorical approach, they explore topics including witchcraft and sexual intercourse, folk explanations of "monstrous" births, the reception of syphilis in Europe, sexual honor, female roles in Christian spiritual practices, and women in "men's jobs". Without losing sight of larger historical themes or societal structures, the authors offer a refreshingly particular and subtle view of everyday people, their hopes and visions, and their words. Drawing from archives and manuscripts that have received little attention until now, "Sex and Gender in Historical Perspective" illuminates the cultural and political forces that shaped gender perception and sexuality over the centuries and offers an engaging and powerful challenge to current assumptions.
£26.50
Johns Hopkins University Press Mad Blood Stirring: Vendetta and Factions in Friuli during the Renaissance
Nobles were slaughtered and their castles looted or destroyed, bodies were dismembered and corpses fed to animals-the Udine carnival massacre of 1511 was the most extensive and damaging popular revolt in Renaissance Italy (and the basis for the story of Romeo and Juliet). Mad Blood Stirring is a gripping account and analysis of this event, as well as the social structures and historical conflicts preceding it and the subtle shifts in the mentality of revenge it introduced. This new reader's edition offers students and general readers an abridged version of this classic work which shifts the focus from specialized scholarly analysis to the book's main theme: the role of vendetta in city and family politics. Uncovering the many connections between the carnival motifs, hunting practices, and vendetta rituals, Muir finds that the Udine massacre occurred because, at that point in Renaissance history, violent revenge and allegiance to factions provided the best alternative to failed political institutions. But the carnival massacre also marked a crossroads: the old mentality of vendetta was soon supplanted by the emerging sense that the direct expression of anger should be suppressed-to be replaced by duels.
£25.50
