Focusing on practice more than theory, this collection offers new perspectives for studying the so-called "humoral medical traditions," as they have flourished around the globe during the last 2,000 years. Exploring notions of "balance" in medical cultures across Eurasia, Africa and the Americas, from antiquity to the present, the volume revisits "harmony" and "holism" as main characteristics of those traditions. It foregrounds a dynamic notion of balance and asks how balance is defined or conceptualized, by whom, for whom and in what circumstances. Balance need not connote egalitarianism or equilibrium. Rather, it alludes to morals of self care exercised in place of excessiveness and indulgences after long periods of a life in dearth. As the moral becomes visceral, the question arises: what constitutes the visceral in a body that is in constant flux and flow? How far, and in what ways, are there fundamental properties or constituents in those bodies?

Peregrine Horden is Professor of Medieval History at Royal Holloway, University of London, and an Extraordinary Research Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He is co-author of The "Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History" (with Nicholas Purcell, Blackwell, 2000) and author of "Hospitals and Healing from Antiquity to the Later Middle Ages" (Ashgate, 2008). He is also writing a general book on early hospitals for Yale University Press.

Elisabeth Hsu is Professor of Anthropology at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Oxford, and Governing Body Fellow of Green Templeton College. Recent co-edited volumes include "Wind, Life, Health" (with Chris Low, Blackwell, 2008) and "Plants, Health and Healing: On the Interface of Ethnobotany and Medical Anthropology" (with Stephen Harris, Berghahn Books, 2010). Her most recent authored book is "Pulse Diagnosis in Early Chinese Medicine: The Telling Touch" (Cambridge University Press, 2010).

In depth discussion of key themes in Mediterranean history / Enables readers to follow the controversies generated by The Corrupting Sea / large-scale comparison between the Mediterranean and other areas of the globe.

This volume brings together for the first time a collection of twelve articles written both jointly and individually by Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell as they have participated in the debates generated by their major work, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History (2000). One theme in those debates has been how a comprehensive Mediterranean history can be written: how an approach to Mediterranean history by way of its ecologies and the communications between them can be joined up with more mainstream forms of enquiry - cultural, social, economic, and political, with their specific chronologies and turning points. The second theme raises the question of how Mediterranean history can be fitted into a larger, indeed global history. It concerns the definition of the Mediterranean in space, the way to characterise its frontiers, and the relations between the region so defined and the other large spaces, many of them oceans, to which historians have increasingly turned for novel disciplinary-cum-geographical units of study. A volume collecting the two authors' studies on both these themes, as well as their reply to critics of The Corrupting Sea, should prove invaluable to students and scholars from a number of disciplines: ancient, medieval and early modern history, archaeology, and social anthropology. (CS1083).

This volume brings together for the first time an updated collection of articles exploring poverty, poor relief, illness, and health care as they intersected in Western Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East, during a 'long' Middle Ages. It offers a thorough and wide-ranging investigation into the institution of the hospital and the development of medicine and charity, with focuses on the history of music therapy and the history of ideas and perceptions fundamental to psychoanalysis. The collection is both sequel and complement to Horden's earlier volume of collected studies, Hospitals and Healing from Antiquity to the Later Middle Ages (2008). It will be welcomed by all those interested in the premodern history of healing and welfare for its breadth of scope and scholarly depth.

The care of the needy and the sick is delivered by various groups including immediate family, the wider community, religious organisations and the State funded institutions. The Locus of Care provides an historical perspective on welfare detailing who carers were in the past, where care was provided, and how far the boundary between family and state or informal and organised institutions have changed over time. Eleven international contributors provide a wide-ranging examination of themes, such as child care, mental health, and provision for the elderly and question the idea that there has been a recent evolutionary shift from informal provision to institutional care. Chapters on Europe and England use case studies and link evidence from ancient and medieval periods to contemporary problems and the recent past, whilst studies on China and South Africa look to the future of welfare throughout the world. By placing welfare in its historical, social, cultural and demographic contexts, Locus of Care reassesses community and institutional care and the future expectations of welfare provision.

This volume brings together for the first time an updated collection of articles exploring poverty, poor relief, illness, and health care as they intersected in Western Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East, during a 'long' Middle Ages. It offers a thorough and wide-ranging investigation into the institution of the hospital and the development of medicine and charity, with focuses on the history of music therapy and the history of ideas and perceptions fundamental to psychoanalysis. The collection is both sequel and complement to Horden's earlier volume of collected studies, Hospitals and Healing from Antiquity to the Later Middle Ages (2008). It will be welcomed by all those interested in the premodern history of healing and welfare for its breadth of scope and scholarly depth.

The first part of this collection brings together a selection of Peregrine Horden's papers on the history of hospitals and related institutions of welfare provision from their origins in Late Antiquity to their medieval flourishing in Byzantium and the Islamic lands as well as in western Europe. The hospital is seen in a variety of original contexts, from demography and family history to the history of music and the liturgy. The second part turns to the history of healing and medicine, outside the hospital as well as within it. These studies cover a period from Hippocratic times to the Renaissance, but with a particular focus on the Mediterranean region - Byzantine, Middle Eastern and Western - in the Middle Ages.

Series Information:
Routledge Studies in the Social History of Medicine

Music, whether performed or heard, has been seen as therapeutic in the history of many cultures. How have its therapeutic properties been conceptualized and explained? Which cultures have used music therapy? What were their aims and techniques, and how much continuity is there between ancient, medieval and modern practice? These are the questions addressed by the essays in this volume. They focus on the place of music therapy in European intellectual, medical and musical traditions, from their classical roots to the development of the music therapy profession since the Second World War. Chapters covering the Judaic, Islamic, Indian and South-East Asian traditions add global, comparative perspectives. Music as Medicine is the first book to establish the whole shape of the history of music therapy in a systematic and scholarly way. It addresses the problem of defining what music therapy has meant in different cultures and periods, and sets the agenda for future research in the subject. It will appeal to a diverse readership of historians, musicologists, anthropologists, and practitioners.

Focusing on practice more than theory, this collection offers new perspectives for studying the so-called "humoral medical traditions," as they have flourished around the globe during the last 2,000 years. Exploring notions of "balance" in medical cultures across Eurasia, Africa and the Americas, from antiquity to the present, the volume revisits "harmony" and "holism" as main characteristics of those traditions. It foregrounds a dynamic notion of balance and asks how balance is defined or conceptualized, by whom, for whom and in what circumstances. Balance need not connoteegalitarianism or equilibrium. Rather, it alludes to morals of self care exercised in place of excessiveness and indulgences after long periods of a life in dearth. As the moral becomes visceral, the question arises: what constitutes the visceral in a body that is in constant flux and flow? How far, and in what ways, are there fundamental properties or constituents in those bodies?

The first part of this collection brings together a selection of Peregrine Horden's papers on the history of hospitals and related institutions of welfare provision from their origins in Late Antiquity to their medieval flourishing in Byzantium and the Islamic lands as well as in western Europe. The hospital is seen in a variety of original contexts, from demography and family history to the history of music and the liturgy. The second part turns to the history of healing and medicine, outside the hospital as well as within it. These studies cover a period from Hippocratic times to the Renaissance, but with a particular focus on the Mediterranean region - Byzantine, Middle Eastern and Western - in the Middle Ages.

Music, whether performed or heard, has been seen as therapeutic in the history of many cultures. How have its therapeutic properties been conceptualized and explained? Which cultures have used music therapy? What were their aims and techniques, and how much continuity is there between ancient, medieval and modern practice? These are the questions addressed by the essays in this volume. They focus on the place of music therapy in European intellectual, medical and musical traditions, from their classical roots to the development of the music therapy profession since the Second World War. Chapters covering the Judaic, Islamic, Indian and South-East Asian traditions add global, comparative perspectives. Music as Medicine is the first book to establish the whole shape of the history of music therapy in a systematic and scholarly way. It addresses the problem of defining what music therapy has meant in different cultures and periods, and sets the agenda for future research in the subject. It will appeal to a diverse readership of historians, musicologists, anthropologists, and practitioners.

This is the first wide-ranging collection of articles on the history of hospitals in the Mediterranean, northern Europe, and the Americas for over seventeen years. It brings together fully revised and expanded versions of papers from the first two conferences (1999 University of East Anglia, Norwich; 2001 Verona University) sponsored by the International Network for the History of Hospitals. The collection shows the vigour and variety of the latest scholarly research on these complex institutions. The sixteen contributions present a nuanced approach to the impact of hospitals on society over a very long time period and an exceptional geographical range.

This special edition of History of Universities, Volume XXXV/1, studies and reappraises the often ignored history of eighteenth-century Oxford, caught as it is between the upheavals of the Stuart century and the reformation of the Victorian era.

The Sahara has long been portrayed as a barrier that divides the Mediterranean world from Africa proper and isolates the countries of the Maghrib from their southern and eastern neighbors. Rather than viewing the desert as an isolating barrier, this volume takes up historian Fernand Braudel's description of the Sahara as "the second face of the Mediterranean." The essays recast the history of the region with the Sahara at its center, uncovering a story of densely interdependent networks that span the desert's vast expanse. They explore the relationship between the desert's "islands" and "shores" and the connections and commonalities that unite the region. Contributors draw on extensive ethnographic and historical research to address topics such as trade and migration; local notions of place, territoriality, and movement; Saharan cities; and the links among ecological, regional, and world-historical approaches to understanding the Sahara. -- Indiana University Press

The Sahara has long been portrayed as a barrier that divides the Mediterranean world from Africa proper and isolates the countries of the Maghrib from their southern and eastern neighbors. Rather than viewing the desert as an isolating barrier, this volume takes up historian Fernand Braudel's description of the Sahara as "the second face of the Mediterranean." The essays recast the history of the region with the Sahara at its center, uncovering a story of densely interdependent networks that span the desert's vast expanse. They explore the relationship between the desert's "islands" and "shores" and the connections and commonalities that unite the region. Contributors draw on extensive ethnographic and historical research to address topics such as trade and migration; local notions of place, territoriality, and movement; Saharan cities; and the links among ecological, regional, and world-historical approaches to understanding the Sahara. -- Indiana University Press