0
Your cart

Your cart is empty

Browse All Departments
Price
  • R100 - R250 (106)
  • R250 - R500 (774)
  • R500+ (7,482)
  • -
Status
Format
Author / Contributor
Publisher

Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > History of ideas, intellectual history

Great Dragon Fantasy, The: A Lacanian Analysis Of Contemporary Chinese Thought (Hardcover): Guanjun Wu Great Dragon Fantasy, The: A Lacanian Analysis Of Contemporary Chinese Thought (Hardcover)
Guanjun Wu
R3,803 Discovery Miles 38 030 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

China has undergone a unique path of development in the post-Maoist era. Especially, the last decade witnessed China's rapid rise to economic wealth and superpower status vis-a-vis the severe developmental predicaments of the West (financial crises, socio-political turbulences, etc.). This book analyzes how the leading Chinese thinkers understand China's prosperity and rapid development today, and whether there is any hidden mechanism that has been playing a crucial role of forming contemporary Chinese thinkers' shared passionate endeavor of resuscitating classical Chinese ideas, and thus shows how the fervor for discovering "essential characteristics" of Chinese thought reveals a hidden psychological mechanism.

How Well Do Facts Travel? - The Dissemination of Reliable Knowledge (Hardcover): Peter Howlett, Mary S Morgan How Well Do Facts Travel? - The Dissemination of Reliable Knowledge (Hardcover)
Peter Howlett, Mary S Morgan
R2,517 Discovery Miles 25 170 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Why write about facts? Facts are everywhere. They litter the utterances of public life as much as the private conversations of individuals. They frequent the humanities and the sciences in equal measure. But their very ubiquity tells us not only why it is difficult to form general but sensible answers in response to seemingly simple questions about facts, but also why it is important to do so. This book discusses how facts travel, and when and why they sometimes travel well enough to acquire a life of their own. Whether or not facts travel in this manner depends not only on their character and ability to play useful roles elsewhere, but also on the labels, packaging, vehicles, and company that take them across difficult terrains and over disciplinary boundaries. These diverse stories of traveling facts, ranging from architecture to nanotechnology and from romance fiction to climate science, change the way we see the nature of facts. Facts are far from the bland and rather boring but useful objects that scientists and humanists produce and fit together to make narratives, arguments, and evidence. Rather, their extraordinary abilities to travel well and to fly flags of many different colors in the process shows when, how, and why facts can be used to build further knowledge beyond and away from their sites of original production and intended use.

Young Thomas More and the Arts of Liberty (Hardcover): Gerard B. Wegemer Young Thomas More and the Arts of Liberty (Hardcover)
Gerard B. Wegemer
R2,458 Discovery Miles 24 580 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

What does it mean to be a free citizen in times of war and tyranny? What kind of education is needed to be a 'first' or leading citizen in a strife-filled country? And what does it mean to be free when freedom is forcibly opposed? These concerns pervade Thomas More's earliest writings, writings mostly unknown, including his 280 poems, declamation on tyrannicide, coronation ode for Henry VIII and his life of Pico della Mirandola, all written before Richard III and Utopia. This book analyzes those writings, guided especially by these questions: Faced with generations of civil war, what did young More see as the causes of that strife? What did he see as possible solutions? Why did More spend fourteen years after law school learning Greek and immersed in classical studies? Why do his early works use vocabulary devised by Cicero at the end of the Roman Republic?

Literary Figures in French Drama (1784-1834) (Hardcover, 1969 ed.): Eric H. Kadler Literary Figures in French Drama (1784-1834) (Hardcover, 1969 ed.)
Eric H. Kadler
R1,559 Discovery Miles 15 590 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The general aim of this book is to present a study of a dramatic genre which was a significant facet of French drama in the period from 1784 to 1834 and has never before been singled out or analyzed. The striking feature of the plays of this genre is that the protagonists represent French literary figures. A casual examination of a collection of late eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century plays, many of which concern literary figures, led to the initial idea for this study. Conscientious cross-checking was sub sequently done in a number of reference works and contemporary newspapers to obtain complete coverage and to draw up a list of all the plays in which French literary figures appeared as characters. From the total number of such plays, 153 have been used as the primary source of information. They were found scattered either in different collections or as separate copies in various libraries. This source has been supplemented by use of theatrical journals and almanacs giving reviews of some of the plays which were not published."

The Complicity of Friends - How George Eliot, G. H. Lewes, and John Hughlings-Jackson Encoded Herbert Spencer's Secret... The Complicity of Friends - How George Eliot, G. H. Lewes, and John Hughlings-Jackson Encoded Herbert Spencer's Secret (Paperback)
Martin Raitiere
R1,618 Discovery Miles 16 180 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

One of Victorian England s most famous philosophers harbored a secret: Herbert Spencer suffered from an illness so laden with stigma that he feared its revelation would ruin him. He therefore went to extraordinary lengths to hide his malady from the public. Exceptionally, he drew two of his closest friends the novelist George Eliot and her partner, G. H. Lewes into his secret. Years later, he also shared it with a remarkable neurologist, John Hughlings-Jackson, better placed than anyone else in England to understand his illness. Spencer insisted that all three support him without betraying his condition to others and two of them did so. But George Eliot, still smarting from Spencer s rejection, years earlier, of her offer of love, did not. Ingeniously, she devised a means both of nominally respecting (for their contemporaries) and of violating (for our benefit) Spencer s injunction. What she hid from her peers she reveals to us in an act of deferred, but audacious literary revenge. It s here decoded for the first time. Indeed The Complicity of Friends comprises the first disclosure of Spencer s hidden frailty but also, more importantly, of the responses it generated in the lives and works of his three notable friends. This book provides a complete rethinking of its principal figures. The novelist who emerges in these pages is a more sinuous and passionate George Eliot than the oracular Victorian we are used to hearing about. The significance of the friendship between Lewes, her irrepressible partner, and the inventive Hughlings-Jackson is outlined for the first time. And in an ironic twist, even his three farsighted confidants could not anticipate that, late in the twentieth century, certain of Spencer s own intuitions about the nature and provenance of his illness would be vindicated. Those with any interest in George Eliot, Lewes, Hughlings-Jackson, or Spencer will be compelled to re-envision their personalities after reading The Complicity of Friends."

The Viennese Students of Civilization - The Meaning and Context of Austrian Economics Reconsidered (Hardcover): Erwin Dekker The Viennese Students of Civilization - The Meaning and Context of Austrian Economics Reconsidered (Hardcover)
Erwin Dekker
R2,628 Discovery Miles 26 280 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This book argues that the work of the Austrian economists, including Carl Menger, Joseph Schumpeter, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, has been too narrowly interpreted. Through a study of Viennese politics and culture, it demonstrates that the project they were engaged in was much broader: the study and defense of a liberal civilization. Erwin Dekker shows the importance of the civilization in their work and how they conceptualized their own responsibilities toward that civilization, which was attacked left and right during the interwar period. Dekker argues that what differentiates their position is that they thought of themselves primarily as students of that civilization rather than as social scientists, or engineers. This unique focus and approach is related to the Viennese setting of the circles, which constitute the heart of Viennese intellectual life in the interwar period.

Physics and Metaphysics - Theories of Space and Time (Paperback): Jennifer Trusted Physics and Metaphysics - Theories of Space and Time (Paperback)
Jennifer Trusted
R1,529 Discovery Miles 15 290 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Jennifer Trusted's new book argues that metaphysical beliefs are essential for scientific inquiry. The theories, presuppositions and beliefs that neither science nor everyday experience can justify are the realm of metaphysics, literally beyond physics'. These basic beliefs form a framework for our activities and can be discovered in science, common sense and religion. By examining the history of science from the eleventh century to the present, this book shows how religious and mystical beliefs, as well as philosophical speculation have had a considerable role in motivating scientists and inspiring scientific inquiry.
Physics and Metaphysics presupposes no technical knowledge of either philosophy or science. It is an ideal introduction to science and the important forces that have shaped its history and ideas.

Cognitive Variations - Reflections on the Unity and Diversity of the Human Mind (Hardcover, New): Geoffrey Lloyd Cognitive Variations - Reflections on the Unity and Diversity of the Human Mind (Hardcover, New)
Geoffrey Lloyd
R2,380 Discovery Miles 23 800 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Sir Geoffrey Lloyd presents a cross-disciplinary study of the problems posed by the unity and diversity of the human mind. On the one hand, as humans we all share broadly the same anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, and certain psychological capabilities -- the capacity to learn a language, for instance. On the other, different individuals and groups have very different talents, tastes, and beliefs, for instance about how they see themselves, other humans and the world around them. These issues are highly charged, for any denial of psychic unity savors of racism, while many assertions of psychic diversity raise the specters of arbitrary relativism, the incommensurability of beliefs systems and their mutual unintelligibility.
Lloyd surveys a fascinating range of subjects, examining where different types of arguments, scientific, philosophical, anthropological and historical can take us. He discusses color perception, spatial cognition, animal and plant taxonomy, the emotions, ideas of health and well-being, concepts of the self, agency and causation, varying perceptions of the distinction between nature and culture, and reasoning itself. To avoid the pitfalls of misleading dichotomies (especially between cross-cultural universalism and cultural relativism) he pays due attention to the multidimensionality of the phenomena to be apprehended and to the diversity of manners, or styles, of apprehending them. The weight to be given to different factors, physical, biological, psychological, cultural, ideological, varies as between different subject-areas and sometimes even within a single area. He uses recent work in social anthropology, linguistics, cognitive science, neurophysiology, andthe history of ideas to redefine the problems and clarify how our evident psychic diversity can be reconciled with our shared humanity.

Carl Rogers' Helping System - Journey & Substance (Hardcover): Godfrey T. Barrett-Lennard Carl Rogers' Helping System - Journey & Substance (Hardcover)
Godfrey T. Barrett-Lennard
R6,391 Discovery Miles 63 910 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

`This book is a monumental achievement, and person-centred practitioners will be indebted to Goff Barrett-Lennard for many years to come. He has written no only a definitive study of the history of person-centred approach - what he calls a report of the "evolutionary course of a human science" - but also an accompanying commentary which is unfailingly enlightening, sometimes provocative and occasional lyrical' - Brian Thorne, Emeritus Professor of Counselling, University of East Anglia and Co-Founder, Norwich Centre `I highly recommend this book as a reference source of major import, as bibliography, as history as art, and as a complex discussion of questions that plague the person-centred practitioner and the client-centred therapist' - The Person-Centered Journal `If you only ever buy one book about the Person-Centred Approach, other than those written by Rogers himself, this is the one. It is a staggering achievement by one of the most knowledgeable writers in the field' - PCP Reviews `This book is a gem, and should have wide appeal. It is an excellent introduction to person-centred psychology, written in accessible style, and it takes the reader beyond the simplicity often confused with naivety Goff Barrett-Lennard reveals a sophisticated complexity that challenges us to view the "person" with fresh eyes and an open mind' - Tony Merry, University of East London `I strongly recommend this book as a sophisticated treatment of the client-or person-centred approach to therapy and its applications to areas outside therapy. It is also a useful overview of research on all aspects of person-centred ideas' - Psychotherapy Research `This book... is not a single "meal" in itself but a positive "larder" containing every imaginable staple food and condiment all exquisitely and thoroughly researched. The book took Godfrey T Barrett-Lennard 20 years to write and it will stand as a reference text for person-centred specialists for longer than that... an essential reference text... and a pantry full of delicious surprises' - Counselling and Psychotherapy, The Journal of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy `Probably the most important piece of work on the person-centred approach to have emerged in recent years... an essential source of reference for anyone with a serious interest in the person-centred approach' - Counselling News Written by an ex-student and long-time colleague of Carl Rogers, this in-depth and challenging book charts the development of person-centred therapy from its origins through to the present day. Godfrey T Barrett-Lennard traces the central concepts and key figures within the movement, set against the contemporary historical, social and political context. As an integrated overview of the person-centred approach, Carl Rogers' Helping System presents a wealth of fascinating ideas and information which is linked to a fresh, incisive account of the unfolding theory, process and research.

The Trammels of Tradition - Social Democracy in Britain, France, and Germany (Hardcover, New): Carl C. Hodge The Trammels of Tradition - Social Democracy in Britain, France, and Germany (Hardcover, New)
Carl C. Hodge
R2,151 Discovery Miles 21 510 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The development of social democratic politics in the dominant states of Western Europe has been influenced by both domestic and international forces. A succinct history of the expanding popularity of social democracy in these countries, this work explains why political parties, whose electoral following was rooted in the growth of the industrial working class, failed to become dominant parliamentary forces in their respective political systems. The book concludes by discussing the implications of the social democratic past in Europe for the future of socialist politics in a post-Cold War context.

The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science (Hardcover): Peter Harrison The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science (Hardcover)
Peter Harrison
R2,584 R2,310 Discovery Miles 23 100 Save R274 (11%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Peter Harrison provides a new account of the religious foundations of scientific knowledge. He shows how the new approaches to the study of nature that emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were directly informed by theological discussions about the Fall of Man and the extent to which the mind and the senses had been damaged by that primeval event. Scientific methods, he suggests, were originally devised as techniques for ameliorating the cognitive damage wrought by human sin. At its inception, modern science was conceptualized as a means of recapturing the knowledge of nature that Adam had once possessed. Contrary to a widespread view which sees science emerging in conflict with religion, Harrison argues that theological considerations were of vital importance in the framing of the new scientific method.

Museums in the German Art World - From the End of the Old Regime to the Rise of Modernism (Hardcover): James J. Sheehan Museums in the German Art World - From the End of the Old Regime to the Rise of Modernism (Hardcover)
James J. Sheehan
R3,166 Discovery Miles 31 660 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Ranging over the entire nineteenth century, Museums in the German Art World is a highly accessible study of the political, cultural, and artistic changes that marked Germany's transition into a modern state. Sheehan is original in focusing his examination of this transition on the invention of the museum, where 'fine arts' were defined, put on display, and the control over their political and cultural importance and influence were established. This book will appeal to German historians, historians of the 19th century Europe, art historians, and anyone interested in the interplay of fine arts, culture, and politics.

John R. Commons's Investigational Economics (Hardcover, 7th ed.): Warren J. Samuels John R. Commons's Investigational Economics (Hardcover, 7th ed.)
Warren J. Samuels
R3,213 Discovery Miles 32 130 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Part of a series which offers contemporary work and research in the areas of methodology and the history of economic thought, this volume concentrates on the work on John R. Commons.

The Ruling Ideas - Bourgeois Political Concepts (Paperback): Amy E. Wendling The Ruling Ideas - Bourgeois Political Concepts (Paperback)
Amy E. Wendling
R1,232 Discovery Miles 12 320 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The concepts that organize our thinking wield, by virtue of this fact, a great deal of political power. This book looks at five concepts whose dominion has increased, steadily, during the bourgeois period of modernity: Labor, Time, Property, Value, and Crisis. These ruling ideas are central not only to many academic disciplines- from philosophy and law to the political, social, and economic sciences- but also to everyday life. These ruling ideas explain the cultural attitudes of boredom and multitasking, revealing the inescapable internalized consciousness of time that has become a mode of political domination. They also explain the terrifying environmental problem of privatized property in water and the terrifying humanitarian problem of privatized property in human bodies and body parts. Finally, they explain the affective dimensions of the housing crisis, and especially why capitalism cultivates the desire to own a home that is beyond one's means.

Political Thought and History - Essays on Theory and Method (Hardcover): J. G. A. Pocock Political Thought and History - Essays on Theory and Method (Hardcover)
J. G. A. Pocock
R2,141 Discovery Miles 21 410 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

John Pocock is arguably the most original and imaginative historian of ideas of modern times. Over the past half century he has created an audience for his work which is truly global, and he has marked the way in which the history of political thought is studied as deeply and personally as any historian of the period. The essays in this major new collection are selected from a lifetime of thinking about political thought, and how we should study it in history. What in fact does it mean to write the history of a political society, and what kind of political thought is this? Professor Pocock emphasises both the theory and practice of political thought considered as action in history, and the political theory of historiography considered as a form of political thought. Together these essays constitute a collection that any serious student of politics and intellectual history needs to possess.

War, States, and International Order - Alberico Gentili and the Foundational Myth of the Laws of War (Hardcover): Claire... War, States, and International Order - Alberico Gentili and the Foundational Myth of the Laws of War (Hardcover)
Claire Vergerio
R2,570 R2,169 Discovery Miles 21 690 Save R401 (16%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Who has the right to wage war? The answer to this question constitutes one of the most fundamental organizing principles of any international order. Under contemporary international humanitarian law, this right is essentially restricted to sovereign states. It has been conventionally assumed that this arrangement derives from the ideas of the late-sixteenth century jurist Alberico Gentili. Claire Vergerio argues that this story is a myth, invented in the late 1800s by a group of prominent international lawyers who crafted what would become the contemporary laws of war. These lawyers reinterpreted Gentili's writings on war after centuries of marginal interest, and this revival was deeply intertwined with a project of making the modern sovereign state the sole subject of international law. By uncovering the genesis and diffusion of this narrative, Vergerio calls for a profound reassessment of when and with what consequences war became the exclusive prerogative of sovereign states.

Encyclopedia of Nineteenth Century Thought (Paperback): Gregory Claeys Encyclopedia of Nineteenth Century Thought (Paperback)
Gregory Claeys
R1,384 Discovery Miles 13 840 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Encyclopedia of Nineteenth Century Thought provides essential information on, and a critical interpretation of, nineteenth-century thought and nineteenth-century thinkers. The project takes as its temporal boundary the period 1789 to 1914. Encyclopedia of Nineteenth Century Thought primarily covers social and political thinking, but key entries also survey science, religion, law, art, concepts of modernity, the body and health, and so on, and thereby take into account all of the key developments in the intellectual history of the period. The encyclopedia is alphabetically organized, and consists of: * principal entries, divided into ideas (4000 words) and persons (2500 words) * subsidiary entries of 1000 words, which are entirely biographical * informational entries of 500 words, which are also biographical.

Fin de Siecle Beirut - The Making of an Ottoman Provincial Capital (Hardcover, New): Jens Hanssen Fin de Siecle Beirut - The Making of an Ottoman Provincial Capital (Hardcover, New)
Jens Hanssen
R6,099 R5,278 Discovery Miles 52 780 Save R821 (13%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Postwar Beirut conjures up contradictory images of remarkable openness and inconceivable violence, of great antiquity and a bright future. The Lebanese capital stands for Arab cosmopolitanism and cultural effervescence but also for its tragedies of destruction. This book examines the historical formation of Beirut as a multiply contested Mediterranean city.
Fin de Siecle Beirut is a landmark contribution to the growing literature in Ottoman studies, in Arab cultural history and on Mediterranean cities. Combining urban theory, particularly Henri Lefebvre's work on cities and capitalism, with postcolonial methodology, the central thesis of this book is that modern Beirut is the outcome of persistent social and intellectual struggles over the production of space. The city of Beirut was at once the product, the object, and the project of imperial and urban politics of difference: overlapping European, Ottoman, and municipal civilising missions competed in the political fields of administration, infrastructure, urban planning, public health, education, public morality, journalism, and architecture.
Jens Hanssen offers a comprehensive, original account of the emergence of modern Beirut out of an economic shift away from Acre in the wake of the Napoleonic wars. He argues that the Ottoman government's decision to heed calls for the creation of a new province around Beirut and grant it provincial capital status in 1888 paved the way for fundamental urban and regional reconfigurations long before colonial policies during the French Mandate period. This new Ottoman province came to constitute the territorial embodiment of regional self-determination for Arab nationalists in Beirut untilthe dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.
Drawing on published and unpublished Ottoman government documents, Arabic sources, and European archival material, Hanssen's book traces the urban experience of modernity in the Ottoman Empire. The transformation of everyday life in late nineteenth-century Beirut and the concomitant policies of urban management is vividly set against the devastating civil war in Mount Lebanon and Damascus in 1860.

Visions of Politics (Hardcover, Volume 3, Hobbes and Civil Science): Quentin Skinner Visions of Politics (Hardcover, Volume 3, Hobbes and Civil Science)
Quentin Skinner
R2,648 R2,281 Discovery Miles 22 810 Save R367 (14%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The third of three volumes of essays by Quentin Skinner, one of the leading historians of ideas in the world. This collection includes some of his most important essays on the political thought of Thomas Hobbes, each of which has been carefully revised for publication in this form. All of Professor Skinner's work is characterised by philosophical power, limpid clarity, and elegance of exposition, and these essays, many of which are now recognised classics, provide a fascinating and convenient digest of the development of his thought.

Choosing the Better Part - Anna Maria van Schurman (1607-1678) (Hardcover, 1996 ed.): M. P. De Baar Choosing the Better Part - Anna Maria van Schurman (1607-1678) (Hardcover, 1996 ed.)
M. P. De Baar; Translated by Lynne Richards; Edited by Machteld Loewensteyn, Marit Monteiro, A. Agnes Sneller
R2,797 Discovery Miles 27 970 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Anna Maria van Schurman was in more than one aspect an unconventional woman in her own lifetime. As a gifted scholar in many foreign and ancient languages, as well as in philosophy and theology, she corresponded with other learned men and women all over Europe. She achieved international renown for her own defence of scholarly activity of women. Life and work of this Dutch femme savante of the 17th Century has thus far been studied by theologians, philosophers, literary scholars, historians, pedagogues and art historians, each concentrating on specific aspects of Van Schurman's biography or work. A rather fragmented image of this scholar was the result. This interdependent collection of essays describes the life and work of Anna Maria van Schurman from an interdisciplinary - or rather multidisciplinary - approach and will outline a more integrated yet at the same time subtly differentiated picture. Nine contributions - from the disciplines of philosophy, theology, Dutch language and literature, intellectual and art history, and women's studies - partly based on new source material, shed light on Van Schurman's ideas on erudition and femininity, ethics and philosophy, as well as on her religious beliefs, within the context of the early modern intellectual community to which she belonged. Audience: This collection of essays will therefore command the interest not only of historians, but also of scholars and students in theology, philosophy, art history, and women's studies.

Pre-Classical Economists Volume III: John Law (1671-1729) and Bernard Mandeville (1660-1733) (Hardcover): Mark Blaug Pre-Classical Economists Volume III: John Law (1671-1729) and Bernard Mandeville (1660-1733) (Hardcover)
Mark Blaug
R4,705 Discovery Miles 47 050 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

John Law was one of those extraordinary personalities in which the 18th century seemed to abound. He held a demand-and-supply theory of value and treated the value of money or the determination of the average level of prices as only a special case of a general theory of value. Law eventually became Minister of Finance in France and was responsible for the greatest speculative frenzy in her history known as the Mississippi Bubble. When the boom collapsed in the closing months of 1720, Law was forced to flee France, permanently discredited, and spent his declining years as a professional gambler in Venice.In The Fable of the Bees: Private Vices, Public Benefits Bernard Mandeville argued that self-interest was a moral vice. Mandeville's satire was deliberately designed to give offence as if to encourage the re-examination of traditional beliefs : conspicuous consumption of luxury goods, the fashionable display of foreign imports, crime, and even natural disasters like the Fire of London all promote the 'division of labour' (Mandeville's term) and contribute to a brisk trade and fall in unemployment, whereas such supposed virtues as thrift and charity contribute to poverty and stagnation. The Fable of the Bees was widely read in the 18th century and criticized by all the leading thinkers of the day.

Cultural Theory: The Key Thinkers (Hardcover): Andrew Edgar, Peter Sedgwick Cultural Theory: The Key Thinkers (Hardcover)
Andrew Edgar, Peter Sedgwick
R3,109 Discovery Miles 31 090 Ships in 12 - 17 working days


Featuring over eighty essays, Cultural Theory: The Key Thinkers is a seminal guide to the literary critics, sociologists, historians, artists, philosophers and writers who have shaped culture and society, and the way in which we view them. Ranging from Arnold to Le Corbusier, from Eco to Marx, the entries offer a lucid analysis of the work of influential figures in the study of cultural theory, making this the perfect introduction for the student and general reader alike.

The Enlightenment and Religion - The Myths of Modernity (Paperback): S. Barnett The Enlightenment and Religion - The Myths of Modernity (Paperback)
S. Barnett
R614 Discovery Miles 6 140 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This publication offers a critical survey of religious change and its causes in 18th-century Europe. It is intended to constitute a radical challenge to the accepted views in traditional Enlightenment studies. Focusing on Enlightenment Italy, France and England, the text illustrates how the canonical view of 18th-century religious change has in reality been constructed upon scant evidence and assumption, in particular the idea that the thought of the enlightened led to modernity. For despite a lack of evidence, one of the fundamental assumptions of Enlightenment studies has been the assertion that there was a vibrant deist movement that formed the intellectual solvent of hte 18th century. traditional birth-of-modernity myth has meant that the actual lack of deists has been glossed over and a quite misleading historical view has become entrenched. As a consequence more traditional forces for religious change have been given little or no attention. The book also riases hitherto neglected fundamental methodological issues relating to the study of the 18th century and the ability of interested contemporaries to mislead posterity. academia, this book advances an important discussion and should be valuable reading for all students studying the period.

Health, Disease and Society in Europe, 1500-1800 - A Source Book (Paperback, Revised): Peter Elmer, Ole Peter Grell Health, Disease and Society in Europe, 1500-1800 - A Source Book (Paperback, Revised)
Peter Elmer, Ole Peter Grell; Index compiled by Isobel McLean
R592 Discovery Miles 5 920 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The period from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment constitutes a vital phase in the history of European medicine. Elements of continuity with the classical and medieval past are evident in the ongoing importance of a humor-based view of medicine and the treatment of illness. At the same time, new theories of the body emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to challenge established ideas in medical circles. In recent years, scholars have explored this terrain with increasingly fascinating results, often revising our previous understanding of the ways in which early modern Europeans discussed the body, health and disease. In order to understand these and related processes, historians are increasingly aware of the way in which every aspect of medical care and provision in early modern Europe was shaped by the social, religious, political and cultural concerns of the age.

Cities of the Gods - Communist Utopias in Greek Thought (Hardcover): Doyne Dawson Cities of the Gods - Communist Utopias in Greek Thought (Hardcover)
Doyne Dawson
R4,911 Discovery Miles 49 110 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Modern studies of classical utopian thought are usually restricted to the Republic and Laws of Plato, producing the impression that Greek speculation about ideal states was invariably authoritarian and hierarchical. In this book, however, Dawson sets Plato in the context of the whole ancient tradition of philosophical utopia. He distinguishes two types of Greek utopia, relating both to the social and the political background of Greece between the fifth and third centuries B.C. Dawson outlines a "low" utopianism that arose from the Greek colonizing movement. A comprehensive program for an ideal city-state, conceived as a critique of existing institutions and a model for limited reform, it was intended for literal implementation. A "high" utopianism arose from the practical utopias--a theoretical system with unattainable standards of social reform designed as a thought experiment for exploring the potentialities of human nature and society. This more abstract model looked at institutional change at a much deeper level than was possible in real political reform. The second, higher utopianism, which was based on total communism in property and family, is the focus of Dawson's study. Attempting to reconstruct the lost utopian works of the Stoics, Dawson argues that their ideal state was universal and egalitarian, in deliberate contrast to the hierarchical and militaristic utopia of Plato. He further asserts that both theories were intended to bring about long-range social reform, though neither was meant for direct implementation. Dawson offers an explanation for the disappearance of the utopian tradition in the later Hellenistic age. Finally, he traces the survival of communist ideas inearly Christianity. Far from being merely another commentary on Plato's Republic, Cities of the Gods is a comprehensive study of the whole ancient tradition of philosophical speculation about ideal societies. Distinguishing two types of Greek utopian literature--the practical and the theoretical--Dawson focuses on the contrast between the authoritarian Platonic utopias and the egalitarian stoic utopias. He traces the history of utopian and communist ideas in pagan and Christian thought to the end of the Roman Empire. This book will be of interest to scholars, as well as general readers, interested in philosophy, political science, classical studies, and religion.

Free Delivery
Pinterest Twitter Facebook Google+
You may like...
LOVE YOUR BEAUCERON AND PLAY SUDOKU…
Loving Puzzles Paperback R445 Discovery Miles 4 450
The Language Lover's Puzzle Book - A…
Alex Bellos Paperback R469 R407 Discovery Miles 4 070
Colossal Kakuro: 72 Titanically Tricky…
Paperback R301 R246 Discovery Miles 2 460
LOVE YOUR GROENENDAEL AND PLAY SUDOKU…
Loving Puzzles Paperback R445 Discovery Miles 4 450
Forth Rail Bridge Jigsaw
Jigsaw R574 Discovery Miles 5 740
LOVE YOUR CESKY TERRIER AND PLAY SUDOKU…
Loving Puzzles Paperback R445 Discovery Miles 4 450
Jumble(r) Gold: Strike It Rich with…
Tribune Content Agency LLC Paperback R364 R324 Discovery Miles 3 240
LOVE YOUR AUSTRALIAN SHEPHERD AND PLAY…
Loving Puzzles Paperback R445 Discovery Miles 4 450
Hello, I'm a F@#%ing Puzzle Genius…
Alise Morales Paperback R374 R327 Discovery Miles 3 270
LOVE YOUR CAROLINA DOG AND PLAY SUDOKU…
Loving Puzzles Paperback R445 Discovery Miles 4 450

 

Partners