This book ranges over private and public reading, and over a variety of religious, social, and scientific communities to locate acts of reading in specific historical moments from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. It also charts the changes in reading habits that reflect broader social and political shifts during the period. A team of expert contributors cover topics including the processes of book production and distribution, audiences and markets, the material text, the relation of print to performance, and the politics of acts of reception. In addition, the volume emphasises the independence of early modern readers and their role in making meaning in an age in which increased literacy equaled social enfranchisement and interpretation was power. Meaning was not simply an authorial act but the work of many hands and processes, from editing, printing, and proofing, to reproducing, distributing, and finally reading.

This study ranges over private and public reading in a variety of religious, social, and scientific communities. It locates and charts specific historical moments of change in reading habits that reflect broader social and political shifts. Reputable contributors cover topics that include the processes of book production and distribution, audiences and markets, the material text, the relationship of print to performance, and the politics of acts of reception.

It is now over twenty years since revisionist history began to transform our understanding of early modern England. In Remapping Early Modern England Kevin Sharpe proposes a new cultural turn in the study of the English Renaissance state. In contrast to the narrow definitions and debates of both revisionist and postrevisionist historians, he urges a broader interdisciplinary approach to the texts of authority, their performance and reception. This collection will help refigure our understanding of the history and politics of the period and the materials and methods of its study.

It is now over twenty years since revisionist history began to transform our understanding of early modern England. The debates between revisionists and their critics goes on. But it has become a sterile debate in which both sides are confined by an attenuated conception of politics. Meanwhile scholars in other disciplines have opened new approaches to the political culture of the English Renaissance state, emphasising the importance of representations of authority and reading plays, poems and portraits as texts of power. Kevin Sharpe has been at the forefront of the dialogue between historians and critics, and a leading exponent of interdisciplinary approaches. In the essays collected here, and in an important new remapping of the field, he revisits earlier debates and urges a 'cultural turn' that will refigure our understanding of the history and politics of early modern England and the materials and methods of our study.

In the climactic part of his three-book series exploring the importance of public image in the Tudor and Stuart monarchies, Kevin Sharpe employs a remarkable interdisciplinary approach that draws on literary studies and art history as well as political, cultural, and social history to show how this preoccupation with public representation met the challenge of dealing with the aftermath of Cromwell's interregnum and Charles II's restoration, and how the irrevocably changed cultural landscape was navigated by the sometimes astute yet equally fallible Stuart monarchs and their successors.

Dynamite Entertainment proudly presents this second omnibus with over 18 issues worth of the acclaimed Army of Darkness series! Featuring Army of Darkness Vol. 1 issues #8-13 ("Ash vs Classic Monsters," "Death of Ash"), and Army of Darkness Vol. 2 issues #1-12 ("From the Ashes," "Long Road Home," "Home Sweet Hell").

Criticism and Compliment examines the poems, plays and masques of the three figures who succeeded Ben Jonson as authors of court entertainments in the England of Charles I. The courtly literature of Caroline England has been dismissed by critics and characterised by historians as propaganda for Charles I's absolutism penned by sycophantic hirelings. Kevin Sharpe questions the assumptions on which these evaluations have been based. Challenging the traditional argument for a polarity between court and country cultures in early Stuart England, he re-reads the plays, poems and masques as primary documents of political attitudes articulated at court. Far from being confined to a decade or a party, the courtly literature of the 1630s is relocated within the broader humanist tradition of counsel. Through the language of love - a language, it is argued, that was part of the discourse of politics in Caroline England - the court poets criticised fundamental premises of the King's political ideology, and counselled traditional and moderate modes of government.

Dynamite presents the first 18 issues of the acclaimed Army of Darkness series in one massive omnibus! Featuring the movie adaptation based on the screenplay by Sam and Ivan Raimi, and illustrated by John Bolton, as well as the first four story arcs from the ongoing series.

Biography appears to thrive as never before; and there clearly remains a broad readership for literary biography. But the methods and approaches of recent criticism which have contributed rich insights and asked new questions about the ways in which we interrogate and appreciate literature have scarcely influenced biography. Biography as a form has been largely unaffected by either new critical or historical perspectives. For early-modern scholars the biographical model, fashioned as a stable form in the eighteenth century, has been, in some respects, a distorting lens onto early-modern lives. In the Renaissance and early-modern period rather the biography's organic and developmental narratives of a coherent subject, lives were written and represented in a bewildering array of textual sites and generic forms. And such lives were clearly imagined and written not to entertain or even simply to inform, but to edify and instruct, to counsel and polemicize. It is only when we understand how early moderns imagined and narrated lives, only that is through a full return to history and an exact historicizing, that we can newly conceive the meaning of those lives and begin to rewrite their histories free of the imperatives and teleologies of Enlightenment. In Writing Lives literary scholars, cultural critics, and historians of ideas and visual media, currently engaged both with early modern conceptions of the life and our own conceptualizing of the biographical project, reflect on the problems of writing lives from the various perspectives of their own research and in the form of case studies informed by new questions.

Biography appears to thrive as never before; and there clearly remains a broad readership for literary biography. But the methods and approaches of recent criticism which have contributed rich insights and asked new questions about the ways in which we interrogate and appreciate literature have scarcely influenced biography. Biography as a form has been largely unaffected by either new critical or historical perspectives. For early-modern scholars the biographical model, fashioned as a stable form in the eighteenth century, has been, in some respects, a distorting lens onto early-modern lives. In the Renaissance and early-modern period rather the biography's organic and developmental narratives of a coherent subject, lives were written and represented in a bewildering array of textual sites and generic forms. And such lives were clearly imagined and written not to entertain or even simply to inform, but to edify and instruct, to counsel and polemicize. It is only when we understand how early moderns imagined and narrated lives, only that is through a full return to history and an exact historicizing, that we can newly conceive the meaning of those lives and begin to rewrite their histories free of the imperatives and teleologies of Enlightenment.
In Writing Lives literary scholars, cultural critics, and historians of ideas and visual media, currently engaged both with early modern conceptions of the life and our own conceptualizing of the biographical project, reflect on the problems of writing lives from the various perspectives of their own research and in the form of case studies informed by new questions.

A beautifully illustrated account of the Impressionist experiment in the United States-showing how the French style was put to distinctly American use From the late 19th century to the Second World War, American painters adapted Impressionism to their own ends, shaping one of the most enduring, complex, and contradictory styles of art ever produced in the United States. This comprehensive book presents an original and nuanced history of the American engagement with the French style, one that was both richer and more ambivalent than mere imitation. Showcasing key works from public and private collections across the United States, this expansive catalogue contextualizes celebrated figures, such as Claude Monet (1840-1926) and William Merritt Chase (1849-1916), among their unduly overlooked-and often female-counterparts, such as Lilla Cabot Perry (1848-1933), Emma Richardson Cherry (1859-1954), and Evelyn McCormick (1862-1948). Essays from leading scholars of the movement expand upon the geography and chronology of Impressionism in America, investigating regional variants and new avenues opened by the experiment. Beautifully illustrated, this volume is a landmark event in the understanding of an important era in American art.

A scholarly study of Sir Robert Cotton as antiquary and politician. It examines his antiquarian writings, the building of his library, his relations with European scholars, his place at court, in parliament, and in the literary society of Renaissance London.

Kevin Sharpe shifts our focus from the linear, day-to-day exterior elements of our caregiving responsibilities to a profound inner landscape: the five different interior aspects of the healing journey of the caregiver. Becoming aware of and then integrating each of these aspects can help us not only reduce the effects of caregiver stress, but can provide us with truths that naturally transform the life of anyone providing care for another. Using the lens of Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, Sharpe delves into each of these five aspects of caregiving and their healing potential. For those exploring this inner landscape, there awaits a mystical, alchemical, healing transformation - one that unfolds and leaves us living in relationship in a bigger, more authentic, and more intimate way.

Refiguring Revolutions presents an original and interdisciplinary reassessment of the cultural and political history of England from 1649 to 1789. Bypassing conventional chronologies and traditional notions of disciplinary divides, editors Kevin Sharpe and Steven Zwicker frame a set of new agendas for, and suggest new approaches to, the study of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England. Customary periodization by dynasty and century obscures the aesthetic and cultural histories that were enacted between and even by the English Civil Wars and the French Revolution. The authors of the essays in this volume set about returning aesthetics to the center of the master narrative of politics. They focus on topics and moments that illuminate the connection between aesthetic issues of a private or public nature and political culture. Politics between the Puritan Revolution and the Romantic Revolution, these authors argue, was a set of social and aesthetic practices, a narrative of presentations, exchanges, and performances as much as it was a story of monarchies and ministries. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1998.

The outstanding essays in this volume explore the interdependency of literature and history in seventeenth-century England. The relation of text to society is examined both as theory and as practice. The theoretical essays explore writing, reading, and the emergence of the aesthetic as historical phenomena of the seventeenth century. Other contributions examine cultural and political practices that fashioned the century: patronage, representations of authority, the socialization of party politics, and fables of power. What is often separated as a distinct sphere of "literature" is returned to the contexts of other cultural and discursive practices. Using the shaping force of history on the imagination and the status of literature as historical evidence, the authors also claim the power of imaginative texts to mold as well as reflect history. Politics of Discourse not only increases our understanding of seventeenth-century England but also advances the study of subjects of interest to cultural critics of all historical periods: genre and canon, the interplay of institution and imagination, and the symbols of power. Contributors: Barbara K. Lewalski Michael McKeon Earl Miner David Norbrook Annabel Patterson J. G. A. Pocock Pocock Mary Ann Radzinowicz Kevin Sharpe Blair Worden Steven N. Zwicker This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1987.

Refiguring Revolutions presents an original and interdisciplinary reassessment of the cultural and political history of England from 1649 to 1789. Bypassing conventional chronologies and traditional notions of disciplinary divides, editors Kevin Sharpe and Steven Zwicker frame a set of new agendas for, and suggest new approaches to, the study of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England. Customary periodization by dynasty and century obscures the aesthetic and cultural histories that were enacted between and even by the English Civil Wars and the French Revolution. The authors of the essays in this volume set about returning aesthetics to the center of the master narrative of politics. They focus on topics and moments that illuminate the connection between aesthetic issues of a private or public nature and political culture. Politics between the Puritan Revolution and the Romantic Revolution, these authors argue, was a set of social and aesthetic practices, a narrative of presentations, exchanges, and performances as much as it was a story of monarchies and ministries. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1998.

Spin and photo opportunities may appear to have emerged onto the political scene only recently, but in fact image and its manipulation have always been vital to the authority of rulers. This book, the second in Kevin Sharpe's trilogy exploring image, power, and communication in early modern England, examines its importance during the turbulent seventeenth century. From the coronation of James I to the end of Cromwell's protectorate, Sharpe considers how royalists and parliamentarians-often using the same vocabularies-sought to manage their public image through words, pictures, and performances in order to win support and secure and enhance their authority.

Is theology responsible to tradition or new insight? Institutional church or humanity at large? Spiritual or everyday existence? Revelation or scientific findings? In his new bookScience of God:Truth in the Age of Science, Kevin Sharpe proposes a method for doing theology which does not divorce it from the practical applications of science. Not only does this work establish that theology ought to be empirical in what it says about the world and God's relationship to it, but it also outlines a clear method for doing this. Science and theology can each share the same empirical method: when each attempts a description of any part of reality, it is relying on its own essential assumptions, or lens. When applied to theology, the method assumes the existence of God and then seeks the nature of God using falsifiable and verifiable techniques. Starting with the sciences that examine happiness-particularly biology, genetics, psychology, and social psychology-Science of God seeks to understand the spiritual nature of humans and, through it, the nature of God.

Science and the spiritual quest come together in this work to produce a reliable and engaging introduction to the chief questions raised at the nexus of science and religion. Sharpe, a leader in the field, ably and engagingly seeks the reality of God in the world, even as he eschews traditional theological terms and authorities. Well- versed in the latest developments in physics and cosmology, biology and neuroscience, Sharpe provides fascinating accounts of how contemporary knowledge expands our notions of reality, and he queries the new scientific gurus for the substance and religious pertinence of their visions. Sharpe shows how they bear on questions of the origins of the universe, how divine action might be understood, immanence and transcendence, human freedom, morality, the presence of evil, and the mystery at the heart of the universe. This text can be viewed as a mini-course in philosophy of religion as affected by contemporary science.

This fascinating book - the first comprehensive study of reading and politics in early modern England - examines how texts of that period were produced and disseminated and how readers interpreted and were influenced by them. Based on the voluminous reading notes of one gentleman, Sir William Drake, the book shows how readers formed radical social values and political ideas as they experienced civil war, revolution, republic and restoration. By analysing the strategies of Drake's reading practices, as well as those of several key contemporaries (including Jonson, Milton and Clarendon), Kevin Sharpe demonstrates how reading in the rhetorical culture of Renaissance England was a political act. He explains how Drake, for example, by reading and rereading classical and humanist works of Tacitus, Machiavelli, Guicciardini and Bacon, became the advocate of dissimulation, intrigue and realpolitik. Authority, Sharpe argues, was experienced, reviewed and criticised not only in the public forum but in the study, on the page and in the imagination, of early modern readers. 'Erudite, intelligent and fascinating ...a wonderful study of a subject central to the intellectual and cultural history of early modern England.' Anthony Grafton Kevin Sharpe was director of the Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies and professor of renaissance studies at Queen Mary, University of London. He is the author of 'The Personal Rule of Charles I', 'Selling the Tudor Monarchy' and 'Image Wars', all published by Yale University Press.

In 1625 Charles I succeeded to the throne of a nation heavily involved in a European war and deeply divided by religious controversy. Within four years he had transformed the political landscape of Britain, dissolved parliament, and begun a period of eleven years of personal rule. The nature of the King's government and the circumstances of its eventual collapse are central to an understanding of the origins of the English Civil War that followed. Kevin Sharpe's massive and authoritative analysis, based on a decade of research across a vast range of manuscript and printed sources, amounts to the most significant contribution to the history of early Stuart government since Gardiner's four-volume classic work in 1877. Sharpe presents an entirely fresh picture of Charles I and his annexation of power. He analyzes the personality, principles, and policies of a monarch who, after summoning more parliaments in his first year of rule than his predecessors had for a century, determined to govern without them. He assesses Charles' program of reform in central and local government and in church and state, and he discusses the years of peace and prosperity it engendered. He also examines priorities in foreign affairs and their impact on domestic policy. Sharpe subtly evaluates the degree of cooperation and opposition elicited and provoked by personal rule, and he analyzes the Scottish rebellion of 1637 that occasioned its undoing. The book yields rich new insights into the history of the reign, politics and religion, foreign policy and finance, the court and the counties, and attitudes and ideas. It provides a substantial reevaluation of the character of the king, the importance of parliaments, and the process of government without them. And it represents a critical new perspective on the origins of the political struggle that ended on the battlefields of the English Civil War.

The management of image in the service of power is a familiar tool of twenty-first- century politics. Yet as long ago as the sixteenth century, British monarchs deployed what we might now describe as "spin." In this book a leading historian reveals how Tudor kings and queens sought to enhance their authority by presenting themselves to best advantage. Kevin Sharpe offers the first full analysis of the verbal and visual representations of Tudor power, embracing disciplines as diverse as art history, literary studies, and the history of consumption and material culture. The author finds that those rulers who maintained the delicate balance between mystification and popularization in the art of royal representation-notably Henry VIII and Elizabeth I-enjoyed the longest reigns and often the widest support. But by the end of the sixteenth century, the perception of royalty shifted, becoming less sacred and more familiar and leaving Stuart successors to the crown to deal with a difficult legacy.

This brief book takes readers to the very heart of what it is that philosophy can do well. Completed shortly before Donald Davidson's death at 85, "Truth and Predication" brings full circle a journey moving from the insights of Plato and Aristotle to the problems of contemporary philosophy. In particular, Davidson, countering many of his contemporaries, argues that the concept of truth is not ambiguous, and that we need an effective theory of truth in order to live well.

Davidson begins by harking back to an early interest in the classics, and an even earlier engagement with the workings of grammar; in the pleasures of diagramming sentences in grade school, he locates his first glimpse into the mechanics of how we conduct the most important activities in our life--such as declaring love, asking directions, issuing orders, and telling stories. Davidson connects these essential questions with the most basic and yet hard to understand mysteries of language use--how we connect noun to verb. This is a problem that Plato and Aristotle wrestled with, and Davidson draws on their thinking to show how an understanding of linguistic behavior is critical to the formulating of a workable concept of truth.

Anchored in classical philosophy, "Truth and Predication" nonetheless makes telling use of the work of a great number of modern philosophers from Tarski and Dewey to Quine and Rorty. Representing the very best of Western thought, it reopens the most difficult and pressing of ancient philosophical problems, and reveals them to be very much of our day.