This book presents customized chapters by 28 authors on the evolution of the Scottish Reformation from the late 1520s to 1638. The book has broad thematic frameworks into which the specific chapters fit. There are 10 such major themes, namely: external and internal pressures for change; breakthrough and revolution; theological and philosophical formulations; varieties of dissemination and implementation; humanism and higher education; legal systems and moral order; appropriations in literary and popular cultures; outsiders; evolution of new national identity; historiographical traditions and prospective developments. While there are introductory elements, the chapters both recall previous studies and off er new research. Concerns of the book are to recall Reformation core religious dimensions and to highlight Scottish contribution to the rich tapestry of the Reformation in Europe. Contributors include: Alexander Broadie, Flynn Cratty, Jane E.A. Dawson, Timothy Duguid, Elizabeth Ewan, Paul R. Goatman, Michael F. Graham, Thomas Green, Crawford Gribben, W. Ian P. Hazlett, Ernest R. Holloway III, David Manning, Alan R. MacDonald, Alasdair A. MacDonald, John McCallum, Jamie McDougall, David G. Mullan, Gordon D. Raeburn, Andrew Spicer, Bryan D. Spinks, Scott R. Spurlock, Laura A.M. Stewart, Mark S. Sweetnam, Kristen Post Walton, David G. Whitla, Jack C. Whytock, and Arthur H. Williamson.

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw the establishment of the new Safavid regime in Iran. Along with reuniting the Persian lands under one rule, the Safavids initiated the radical transformation of the religious landscape by introducing Imami Shi'ism as the official state faith and in this as in other ways, laying the foundations of Iran's modern identity. In this book, leading scholars of Iranian history, culture and politics examine the meaning of the idea of Iran in the Safavid period by examining contemporary experiences of both insiders and outsiders, asking how modern scholarship defines the distinctive features of the age. While sometimes viewed as a period of decline from the high points of classical Persian literature and the visual arts of preceding centuries, the chapters of this book demonstrate that the Safavid era was nevertheless a period of great literary and artistic activity in the realms of both secular and theological endeavour. With the establishment of comparable polities across western, southern and central Asia at broadly the same time, the book explores some of the literary and political interactions with Iran's Ottoman, Mughal and Uzbek neighbours. As the volume and frequency of European merchants and diplomats visiting Safavid Persia increased, especially in the seventeenth century, and as more Iranians recorded their own travel experiences to surrounding Muslim lands, the Safavid period is the first in which we can document and explore the contours of Iran's place in an expanding world, and gain insights into how Iranians saw themselves and others saw them.

The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) lies at the intersection of early modern and modern times. Frequently portrayed as the concluding chapter of the Reformation, it also points to the future by precipitating fundamental changes in the military, legal, political, religious, economic, and cultural arenas that came to mark a new, the modern era. Prompted by the 400th anniversary of the outbreak of the war, the contributors reconsider the event itself and contextualize it within the broader history of the Reformation, military conflicts, peace initiatives, and negotiations of war.

The Kunstkammer was a programmatic display of art and oddities amassed by wealthy Europeans during the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. These nascent museums reflected the ambitions of such thinkers as Descartes, Locke, and Kepler to unite the forces of nature with art and technology. Bredekamp advances a radical view that the baroque Kunstkammer is also the nucleus of modern cyberspace.