an essay in historical anthropology Ralph Josselin, vicar of Earls Colne in Essex from 1641 to his death in 1683, kept for almost forty years a remarkably detailed account of his lifehis mental and emotional world as well as his activities. Few diaries from this period afford such a rounded picture of a family from so many aspects. Alan Macfarlane, a historian and lecturer in social anthropology at Cambridge University, explores through the diary Josselin's life as farmer, businessman, Puritan clergyman, neighbor, husband, and father, providing a unique view of a seventeenth-century life from the inside.
"The great merit of Macfarlane's book is that it poses questions; it teaches historians to look very much more closely, and in new ways, at familiar evidence; it brings familiar relationships into the centre of scrutiny; and it offers, in a significant way, the unit of one man's life, and one man's economic fortunes, as a focus of study." E.P. Thompson, Midland History
"Alan Macfarlane [is] a yound historian who has already deepened out understanding of seventeenth-century English society." Christopher Hill, Renaissance Quarterly
"Ralph Josselin's diary when subjected to Macfarlane's anthropological tools provides major insights into the life of a yeoman-priest, his community, and the vision peculiar to that lost world." John J. Waters, New England Quarterly
"Historians . . . will find this book valuable as well as enormously enjoyable." D. H. Pennington, American Historical Review
"By any standards, however exacting, this is a remarkable addition to seventeenth-century studies. . . . . A crisply written and penetrating study of a man's mind, circustances, and environment. . . . This is social history with the politicsand all the rest of the blood, sweat, and tearsvery much left in, as it should be, but all too rarely is." Times Literary Supplement
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!