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Full-Text Articles in History
David Hume: The Philosopher As Historian: Book Review, Richard Kleer
David Hume: The Philosopher As Historian: Book Review, Richard Kleer
Religion in the Age of Enlightenment
Judging a book by its cover would give especially misleading results in this case. From its title, readers might expect a general introduction to Hume's scholarly work. Instead, they will get an account mainly of Hume the historian. The volume was originally commissioned as part of "a series of short books by historians writing about their favourite historians" (5). First published by Avon (in Britain) and St. Martin's (in the United States), it is now reprinted by Penguin and Yale. The rerelease may have a lot to do with the apparent popularity (judging by the many reviews, at least) of …
Imagining Methodism In Eighteenth-Century Britain: Enthusiasm, Belief, And The Borders Of The Self: Book Review, Robin Runia
Imagining Methodism In Eighteenth-Century Britain: Enthusiasm, Belief, And The Borders Of The Self: Book Review, Robin Runia
Religion in the Age of Enlightenment
I n her sensitive and thoughtful afterword, Misty Anderson rehearses the investment of literary criticism in "restaging the opposition between a religious past and a secular modernity" (236). She makes clear how the discipline of literary studies has largely refused to acknowledge its own ideology of secularization. Quoting Michael Kauffman, Anderson offers her audience the following call to action: "Anyone constructing a narrative of secularization (even if finally to refute it) needs to evaluate certain ideas, truth claims, or values that may seem more or less spiritual, more or less 'religious"' (236). Following her own thorough consideration of the relationship …
Re-Envisioning Blake: Book Review, Joshua Davis
Re-Envisioning Blake: Book Review, Joshua Davis
Religion in the Age of Enlightenment
Born out of a conference commemorating its subject's 250th birthday, Re-Envisioning Blake surveys the state of contemporary Blake scholarship and invites new and challenging readings of one of British literary history's most renowned iconoclasts. The book's introduction reviews three principal strains in Blake studies-the bibliographic, the hermeneutical, and the historicist-and seeks to locate points of convergence, sites of overlap, in order to imagine not just the future of Blake studies but the future of literary studies as well.
The Truth Of The Christian Religion, With Jean Le Clerc's Notes And Additions: Book Review, Robert G. Walker
The Truth Of The Christian Religion, With Jean Le Clerc's Notes And Additions: Book Review, Robert G. Walker
Religion in the Age of Enlightenment
P aul L. Maier, in his introduction to a recent translation of The Church History of Eusebius, has some refreshing advice: regarding Eusebius's long lists of bishops' names and dates, "the ~eader is urged to scan or to skip this material, since it can all be found in Appendix 2" (20). I can enthusiastically recommend the book under review, a new edition of what is generally known as the first work of Protestant apologetics, with no expectation that many people on the planet will read every word. To become familiar with this book, however, is to go far toward an …
Anglican Church Policy, Eighteenth Century Conflict, And The American Episcopate: Book Review, Christopher J. Fauske
Anglican Church Policy, Eighteenth Century Conflict, And The American Episcopate: Book Review, Christopher J. Fauske
Religion in the Age of Enlightenment
Perhaps the most charming aspect of Kenneth Elliott's Anglican Church Policy, Eighteenth Century Conflict, and the American Episcopate is its author's propensity to take at face value the statements made in the voluminous correspondence, the many pam - phlets, and the occasional published sermons on the subject of whether a resident bishop would help secure the Church of England in the North American colonies and whether such an outcome was in any case desirable.
Philosophy And Religion In Enlightenment Britain: New Case Studies: Book Review, Bob Tennant
Philosophy And Religion In Enlightenment Britain: New Case Studies: Book Review, Bob Tennant
Religion in the Age of Enlightenment
This collection of twelve individually strong pieces was published in tribute to M. A. Stewart, the former Gifford Lecturer and, until lately, professor of philosophy at Lancaster University. The editor, Ruth Savage, succeeded in putting together an outstanding list of contributors from across Britain, Europe, and North America. This in itself is a tribute to Stewart's eminence in research and evident excellence as a teacher.
Milton In Context: Book Review, Angela Eward-Mangione
Milton In Context: Book Review, Angela Eward-Mangione
Religion in the Age of Enlightenment
John Milton evades literary categorization more than any of his early modern contemporaries. William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe primarily elicited fame through their contributions to English drama and poetry. John Donne is recognized as a master of both the sonnet and the sermon, though his love poetry remains a significant object of study as well. Milton, however, who wrote primarily as a poet and a pamphleteer, also worked as a government employee, actively engaging his social and political circumstances perhaps more than any other literary writer in early modern England. Milton's activism later led T. S. Eliot, when repenting his …
Theatre Of Crisis: The Performance Of Power In The Kingdom ·Of Ireland, 1662-1692: Book Review, Dave Mcginnis
Theatre Of Crisis: The Performance Of Power In The Kingdom ·Of Ireland, 1662-1692: Book Review, Dave Mcginnis
Religion in the Age of Enlightenment
Patrick Tuite's book Theatre of Crisis ostensibly details the political and social underpinnings of play development and performative aesthetics in Ireland between 1662 and 1692. From a purely historical point of view, this alone would merit the writing of the text as a point of serious study since Irish drama has traditionally lagged behind its English counterpart, even during the very years on which Tuite focuses. In pursuing this subject, Tuite has crafted a text that not only encapsulates the aesthetic preferences of the relevant era on Ireland's dominant stage at the time, the Smock Alley Theatre, but he has …
The Eighteenth-Century Novel And The Secularization Of Ethics: Book Review, Mary Ann Rooks
The Eighteenth-Century Novel And The Secularization Of Ethics: Book Review, Mary Ann Rooks
Religion in the Age of Enlightenment
For many reasons-including religious reforms and controversies, doubts about the effectiveness of the clergy, the development of scientific advancements and Enlightenment ideologies, and disruptions of class and gender expectations coinciding with the emergence of a consumer economy-it is easy to imagine writers and readers in the eighteenth century searching for a locus of moral authority. The frequency of claims to "entertain and instruct;' a mantra of eighteenth-century prose fiction, indicates a need felt by many authors to address the suspected dangers of novel reading and defend the legitimacy-in part_icular the moral efficacy-of this emergent genre. In The Eighteenth-Century Novel and …
Religion And The Politics Of Time: Holidays In France From Louis Xiv Through Napoleon: Book Review, Muriel Schmid
Religion And The Politics Of Time: Holidays In France From Louis Xiv Through Napoleon: Book Review, Muriel Schmid
Religion in the Age of Enlightenment
As the full title indicates, Religion and the Politics of Time is organized chronologically and presents the evolution of the organization of time in France from the early seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century. The style of this historical inquiry is very much reminiscent of Michel Vovelle's or Bernard Plongeron's publications on eighteenth-century revolutionary France, both of which are similarly based on extensive archival research. One of the stated goals of the book is "to reexamine the republican calendar in a long-term framework'' (5). Looking at the history that immediately precedes and follows the creation of the republican calendar …
Living With Religious Diversity In Early Modern Europe: Book Review, Michael Mclaughlin
Living With Religious Diversity In Early Modern Europe: Book Review, Michael Mclaughlin
Religion in the Age of Enlightenment
This volume, consisting of many different approaches to religious diversity and religious coexistence, is part of the extensive series St. Andrews' Studies in Reformation History and is the successful product of a conference on religious diversity held at Carl von Ossietzky Universitat (Oldenberg, Germany) in September 2007. An introduction by C. Scott Dixon and a concluding attempt to theorize religious diversity by Mark Greengrass frame the volume.
Wesley And Methodist Studies: Book Review, Kathryn Stasio
Wesley And Methodist Studies: Book Review, Kathryn Stasio
Religion in the Age of Enlightenment
Wesley and Methodist Studies once again provides carefully researched, worthwhile material demonstrating the important niche that the annual occupies. The word niche seems more applicable to volume 3 than to volume 2. This is certainly not a complaint or a criticism, but the primary articles of volume 3 are highly specialized and less likely to attract a wide audience. Clearly, the title of the annual alerts readers to its specialization, but some of the authors could have framed their arguments to show the reader the bigger picture instead of, for example, offering conclusions that summarize.
William Gibson And Geordan Hammond, Editors Wesley And Methodist Studies, Vol. 2: Book Review, Kathryn Stasio
William Gibson And Geordan Hammond, Editors Wesley And Methodist Studies, Vol. 2: Book Review, Kathryn Stasio
Religion in the Age of Enlightenment
Wesley and Methodist Studies is a joint venture of the Manchester Wesley Research Centre and the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History, Oxford Brookes University. The annual publishes works on John and Charles Wesley, Methodism, and the Evangelical Revival, primarily covering the eighteenth century through the present, though it also considers essays dealing with historical precedents for the Wesleys and their religious movement. Volume 2 contains five articles on the topics of Charles Wesley, the early Methodist use of verbal proclamation, the relationship between Hugh Bourne and William Clowes in Primitive Methodism, and Irish Methodist membership between 1855 and …
Daniel Brewer: The Enlightenment Past: Reconstructing Eighteenth, Century French Thought: Book Review, Charles T. Wolfe, Veronica Ganora
Daniel Brewer: The Enlightenment Past: Reconstructing Eighteenth, Century French Thought: Book Review, Charles T. Wolfe, Veronica Ganora
Religion in the Age of Enlightenment
Daniel Brewer's study of the French Enlightenment-its construction, its self-fashioning, and its subsequent reconstruction in a series of national memorial performancesis heavily overladen with a kind of "poetics of ruins:' Ruins and monuments are everywhere here, in an almost dialectical relation: ''Alas, more beautiful is the debris of a beautiful palace;' exclaims Victor Hugo (quoted p. 186), and Chapter 9, which is explicitly devoted to the theme of ruins, refers to some of the classical Enlightenment narratives of progress, from Condorcet to Turgot, as self-consciously focused on the problem of "building on ruins:' The reference to the past in the …
Robert D. Cornwall And William Gibson, Editors: Religion, Politics, And Dissent, 1660-1832: Essays In Honour Of James E. Bradley: Book Review, Dustin D. Stewart
Robert D. Cornwall And William Gibson, Editors: Religion, Politics, And Dissent, 1660-1832: Essays In Honour Of James E. Bradley: Book Review, Dustin D. Stewart
Religion in the Age of Enlightenment
I n reviewing a Festschrift, one shouldn't lose sight of the volume and focus overmuch on the work of its dedicatee. The success of a party is the responsibility of the hosts rather than the guest of honor. Yet for a certain kind of honoree one may well expect a certain kind of party, so the relationship between the honored work and the honoring work demands attention. The editors of Religion, Politics and Dissentbegin their book by depicting James E. Bradley, whose sixty-fifth birthday occasioned the collection, as an opponent of what they call "the dominant historical position" …
Daniella Kostroun And Lisa Vollendorf, Editors Women, Religion, And The Atlantic World (1600-1800): Book Review, Robin Runia
Daniella Kostroun And Lisa Vollendorf, Editors Women, Religion, And The Atlantic World (1600-1800): Book Review, Robin Runia
Religion in the Age of Enlightenment
This recent collection of essays promises to transcend the Old vs. New World, Catholic vs. Protestant, and European vs. indigenous dichotomies that have dominated the emerging field of Atlantic studies. Edited by Daniella Kostroun and Lisa Vollendorf and drawing from a colloquium sponsored by UCLA's Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, Women, Religion, and the Atlantic World (1600-1800)explores how religion and spirituality shaped local politics, economics, gender, and race in Europe, the Caribbean, and North and South America. The alternative directions described and modeled in the volume all assume a women's and …