Landscape And Authority In The Early Modern World

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Landscape and Authority in the Early Modern World

Author : Stephen H. Whiteman
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 1512823597
Total Pages : 361 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (128 download)

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Book Synopsis Landscape and Authority in the Early Modern World by : Stephen H. Whiteman

Download or read book Landscape and Authority in the Early Modern World written by Stephen H. Whiteman and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2023-05-30 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Courts and societies across the early modern Eurasian world were fundamentally transformed by the physical, technological, and conceptual developments of their era. Evolving forms of communication, greatly expanded mobility, the spread of scientific knowledge, and the emergence of an increasingly integrated global economy all affected how states articulated and projected visions of authority into societies that, in turn, perceived and responded to these visions in often contrasting terms. Landscape both reflected and served as a vehicle for these transformations, as the relationship between the land and its imagination and consumption became a fruitful site for the negotiation of imperial identities within and beyond the precincts of the court. In Landscape and Authority in the Early Modern World, contributors explore the role of landscape in the articulation and expression of imperial identity and the mediation of relationships between the court and its many audiences in the early modern world. Nine studies focused on the geographical areas of East and South Asia, the Islamic world, and Europe illuminate how early modern courts and societies shaped, and were shaped by, the landscape, including both physical sites, such as gardens, palaces, cities, and hunting parks, and conceptual ones, such as those of frontiers, idealized polities, and the cosmos. The collected essays expand the meaning and potential of landscape as a communicative medium in this period by putting an array of forms and subjects in dialogue with one another, including not only unique expressions, such as gardens, paintings, and manuscripts, but also the products of rapidly developing commercial technologies of reproduction, especially print. The volume invites a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the complexity with which early modern states constructed and deployed different modes of landscape for different audiences and environments. Contributors: Robert Batchelor, Seyed Mohammad Ali Emrani, John Finlay, Caroline Fowler, Katrina Grant, Finola O'Kane, Anton Schweizer, Larry Silver, Stephen H. Whiteman.

Medieval and Early Modern Representations of Authority in Scotland and the British Isles

Author : Kate Buchanan
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317098137
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis Medieval and Early Modern Representations of Authority in Scotland and the British Isles by : Kate Buchanan

Download or read book Medieval and Early Modern Representations of Authority in Scotland and the British Isles written by Kate Buchanan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-20 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What use is it to be given authority over men and lands if others do not know about it? Furthermore, what use is that authority if those who know about it do not respect it or recognise its jurisdiction? And what strategies and 'language' -written and spoken, visual and auditory, material, cultural and political - did those in authority throughout the medieval and early modern era use to project and make known their power? These questions have been crucial since regulations for governance entered society and are found at the core of this volume. In order to address these issues from an historical perspective, this collection of essays considers representations of authority made by a cross-section of society within the British Isles. Arranged in thematic sections, the 14 essays in the collection bridge the divide between medieval and early modern to build up understanding of the developments and continuities that can be followed across the centuries in question. Whether crown or noble, government or church, burgh or merchant; all desired power and influence, but their means of representing authority were very different. These essays encompass a myriad of methods demonstrating power and disseminating the image of authority, including: material culture, art, literature, architecture and landscapes, saintly cults, speeches and propaganda, martial posturing and strategic alliances, music, liturgy and ceremonial display. Thus, this interdisciplinary collection illuminates the variable forms in which authority was presented by key individuals and institutions in Scotland and the British Isles. By placing these within the context of the European powers with whom they interacted, this volume also underlines the unique relationships developed between the people and those who exercised authority over them.

The Political Landscape

Author : Adam T Smith
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520237501
Total Pages : 351 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (22 download)

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Book Synopsis The Political Landscape by : Adam T Smith

Download or read book The Political Landscape written by Adam T Smith and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2003-10-07 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This highly original and challenging book defies every easy form of classification. Ostensibly about early polities, its penetrating and erudite asides extend with equal facility into contemporary politics and the symmetrical deficiencies of modernism and postmodernism. To my knowledge, imaginative reflections of spatial representations have never previously found their way into the theoretical base of what has been thought of as an essentially materialistic archaeological science. It is a pleasure and a discovery to see the permanent and rightful place Adam Smith has now fashioned for them."—Robert McC. Adams, Secretary Emeritus, The Smithsonian Institution "If social theory in cultural anthropology was transformed in the last decades by a 'linguistic turn,' research by archaeologists into the development and practices of early states now seems to be undergoing a 'geographic turn.' Adam Smith's book, although drawing from modern currents in geography, anthropology, sociology, and political philosophy, brings original archaeological contributions to social theory by examining the making and re-making of landscapes in early complex polities (especially in Mesopotamian, Urartian, and Maya states). Smith observes these (and other) early states as 'political landscapes,' in which monuments come to constitute authority and shape memories. Smith's book represents a comprehensive turn from metahistorical reifications of the state to investigations of how the content of social roles was determined through the production of landscapes. The landscape of archaeology will be changed decisively by this book."—Norman Yoffee, Professor, Dept. of Near Eastern Studies and Dept. of Anthropology, University of Michigan. "This book emerges as both a remarkable scholarly achievement and something of a manifesto for contemporary political thinking and engagement."—Susan E. Alcock, author of Archaeologies of the Greek Past: Landscape, Monuments, and Memories

The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe

Author : Daniel H. Nexon
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 140083080X
Total Pages : 372 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe by : Daniel H. Nexon

Download or read book The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe written by Daniel H. Nexon and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-31 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars have long argued over whether the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which ended more than a century of religious conflict arising from the Protestant Reformations, inaugurated the modern sovereign-state system. But they largely ignore a more fundamental question: why did the emergence of new forms of religious heterodoxy during the Reformations spark such violent upheaval and nearly topple the old political order? In this book, Daniel Nexon demonstrates that the answer lies in understanding how the mobilization of transnational religious movements intersects with--and can destabilize--imperial forms of rule. Taking a fresh look at the pivotal events of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--including the Schmalkaldic War, the Dutch Revolt, and the Thirty Years' War--Nexon argues that early modern "composite" political communities had more in common with empires than with modern states, and introduces a theory of imperial dynamics that explains how religious movements altered Europe's balance of power. He shows how the Reformations gave rise to crosscutting religious networks that undermined the ability of early modern European rulers to divide and contain local resistance to their authority. In doing so, the Reformations produced a series of crises in the European order and crippled the Habsburg bid for hegemony. Nexon's account of these processes provides a theoretical and analytic framework that not only challenges the way international relations scholars think about state formation and international change, but enables us to better understand global politics today.

The Sacralization of Space and Behavior in the Early Modern World

Author : Jennifer Mara DeSilva
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317016785
Total Pages : 345 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis The Sacralization of Space and Behavior in the Early Modern World by : Jennifer Mara DeSilva

Download or read book The Sacralization of Space and Behavior in the Early Modern World written by Jennifer Mara DeSilva and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-09 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Early Modern period - as both reformed and Catholic churches strove to articulate orthodox belief and conduct through texts, sermons, rituals, and images - communities grappled frequently with the connection between sacred space and behavior. The Sacralization of Space and Behavior in the Early Modern World explores individual and community involvement in the approbation, reconfiguration and regulation of sacred spaces and the behavior (both animal and human) within them. The individual’s understanding of sacred space, and consequently the behavior appropriate within it, depended on local need, group dynamics, and the dissemination of normative expectations. While these expectations were defined in a growing body of confessionalizing literature, locally and internationally traditional clerical authorities found their decisions contested, circumvented, or elaborated in order to make room for other stakeholders’ activities and needs. To clearly reveal the efforts of early modern groups to negotiate authority and the transformation of behavior with sacred space, this collection presents examples that allow the deconstruction of these tensions and the exploration of the resulting campaigns within sacred space. Based on new archival research the eleven chapters in this collection examine diverse aspects of the campaigns to transform Christian behavior within a variety of types of sacred space and through a spectrum of media. These essays give voice to the arguments, exhortations, and accusations that surrounded the activities taking place in early modern sacred space and reveal much about how people made sense of these transformations.

Lordship, State Formation and Local Authority in Late Medieval and Early Modern England

Author : Spike Gibbs
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1009311867
Total Pages : 293 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Lordship, State Formation and Local Authority in Late Medieval and Early Modern England by : Spike Gibbs

Download or read book Lordship, State Formation and Local Authority in Late Medieval and Early Modern England written by Spike Gibbs and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-07-27 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing a new narrative of how local authority and social structures adapted in response to the decline of lordship and the process of state formation, Spike Gibbs uses manorial officeholding – where officials were chosen from among tenants to help run the lord's manorial estate – as a prism through which to examine political and social change in the late medieval and early modern English village. Drawing on micro-studies of previously untapped archival records, the book spans the medieval/early modern divide to examine changes between 1300 and 1650. In doing so, Gibbs demonstrates the vitality of manorial structures across the medieval and early modern era, the active and willing participation of tenants in these frameworks, and the way this created inequalities within communities. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

The Nature of Authority

Author : Dianne Suzette Harris
Publisher : Penn State University Press
ISBN 13 : 0271022167
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis The Nature of Authority by : Dianne Suzette Harris

Download or read book The Nature of Authority written by Dianne Suzette Harris and published by Penn State University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Italian villas are generally regarded as beautiful havens where a privileged elite, fleeing the harsh realities of the city, found peace and harmony amid buildings and gardens framed upon classical ideals of proportion, balance, and the natural. In her interdisciplinary book, Dianne Harris presents a radically different view of villa life as it developed during the eighteenth century on the vast estates dominating the fertile Lombard plain. Governed from Vienna by a Habsburg regime bent upon increased tax revenues, the great landowning families lived lives fraught with tensions and contradictions. Although they retained many privileges and indulged in shows of wealth and social distinction, they faced mounting demands for reform and progress from an absolutist state. The Nature of Authority employs what Harris calls "panoramic history" to trace the mingling of enlightened reform and a culture of display in the design and functioning of villas and villa life in eighteenth-century Lombardy. Cadastral maps are juxtaposed with Marc'Antonio Dal Re's famous prints of the "delights" of villa life; both are woven into an exceptionally wide-ranging investigation of the villas, their gardens, and crop-bearing fields and their representation in visual and written sources from agricultural treatises to books of etiquette. Combining this diverse material with a sharp focus upon the organization of space and class privilege, Harris shows how the villas served as centers of complex cultural and sociopolitical transactions, fashioning a landscape that was at once a beguiling vista and a tool in the enforcement of a strict hierarchy of use and value. Harris's innovative book reveals the complicity of landscape in the formation of culture and the structures of everyday life. It also elucidates the significance of Lombardy as a testing ground for Habsburg policies of enlightened reform in the social and natural orders.

India and the Early Modern World

Author : Jagjeet Lally
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1003816819
Total Pages : 560 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (38 download)

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Book Synopsis India and the Early Modern World by : Jagjeet Lally

Download or read book India and the Early Modern World written by Jagjeet Lally and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-12-20 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: India and the Early Modern World provides an authoritative and wide-ranging survey of the Indian subcontinent over the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, set within a global context. This book explores questions critical to our understanding of early modern India. How, for instance, were Indians’ religious beliefs, their ways of life, and the horizons of their learning changing over this period? What was happening in the countryside and towns, to culture and the arts, and to the state and its power? Were such experiences comparable or linked to those in other parts of the world? Can we speak of a global early modernity, therefore, within which India played an important role? Organised thematically, each chapter engages with such key issues, debates, and concepts, covering wide ground as it connects, compares, and contrasts developments witnessed across early modern South Asia to those around the globe. Drawing on the fruits of research in numerous fields over the past fifty years and rich in detail, India and the Early Modern World is a pathbreaking volume written engagingly and accessibly with scholars, students, and non-specialists in mind.

Early Modern Herbals and the Book Trade

Author : Sarah Neville
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1316515990
Total Pages : 307 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (165 download)

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Book Synopsis Early Modern Herbals and the Book Trade by : Sarah Neville

Download or read book Early Modern Herbals and the Book Trade written by Sarah Neville and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-06 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early modern herbal, Sarah Neville finds a captivating example of how Renaissance print culture shaped scientific authority.

Argument and Authority in Early Modern England

Author : Conal Condren
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521859080
Total Pages : 428 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (59 download)

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Book Synopsis Argument and Authority in Early Modern England by : Conal Condren

Download or read book Argument and Authority in Early Modern England written by Conal Condren and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-03-17 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A radical reappraisal of the character of moral and political theory in early modern England.

Earls Colne's Early Modern Landscapes

Author : Dr Dolly MacKinnon
Publisher : Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN 13 : 0754639649
Total Pages : 345 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (546 download)

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Book Synopsis Earls Colne's Early Modern Landscapes by : Dr Dolly MacKinnon

Download or read book Earls Colne's Early Modern Landscapes written by Dr Dolly MacKinnon and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2014-05-28 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Essex village of Earls Colne, one of the most studied parishes in England, has been the subject of an ongoing research project to collate its collection of historical documents. This book offers a fresh approach to the village’s early modern cultural and political world by focussing on the social relationships that bound the community together within its mental and physical landscape. MacKinnon reconstructs the dynamics of Earls Colne by examining how spaces within society were generated, gendered and governed, and how this was documented in the records, names and monuments of the parish.

Nature in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Times

Author : Albrecht Classen
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3111387828
Total Pages : 583 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (113 download)

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Book Synopsis Nature in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Times by : Albrecht Classen

Download or read book Nature in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Times written by Albrecht Classen and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2024-07-01 with total page 583 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of pre-modern anthropology requires the close examination of the relationship between nature and human society, which has been both precarious and threatening as well as productive, soothing, inviting, and pleasurable. Much depends on the specific circumstances, as the works by philosophers, theologians, poets, artists, and medical practitioners have regularly demonstrated. It would not be good enough, as previous scholarship has commonly done, to examine simply what the various writers or artists had to say about nature. While modern scientists consider just the hard-core data of the objective world, cultural historians and literary scholars endeavor to comprehend the deeper meaning of the concept of nature presented by countless writers and artists. Only when we have a good grasp of the interactions between people and their natural environment, are we in a position to identify and interpret mental structures, social and economic relationships, medical and scientific concepts of human health, and the messages about all existence as depicted in major art works. In light of the current conditions threatening to bring upon us a global crisis, it matters centrally to take into consideration pre-modern discourses on nature and its enormous powers to understand the topoi and tropes determining the concepts through which we perceive nature. Nature thus proves to be a force far beyond all human comprehensibility, being both material and spiritual depending on our critical approaches.

Geographical Imagination and the Authority of Images

Author : Denis E. Cosgrove
Publisher : Franz Steiner Verlag
ISBN 13 : 9783515088923
Total Pages : 120 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (889 download)

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Book Synopsis Geographical Imagination and the Authority of Images by : Denis E. Cosgrove

Download or read book Geographical Imagination and the Authority of Images written by Denis E. Cosgrove and published by Franz Steiner Verlag. This book was released on 2006 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geographical imagination and the authority of images collects three papers and an interview on the themes presented and discussed during the 2005 Hettner lectures. Cosgrove examines the roles that vision and imagination have played in shaping material and represented landscapes at scales ranging from the local and regional to the global and cosmic. The book presents substantive studies of cosmographic and global mapping, the picturesque tradition and suburban Los Angeles, and the use of aeTranspennine' England as a geographical art gallery. Embedded in these are theoretical and ethical reflections on the ways that we come to know the world, ourselves and each other through geographical engagements, especially when these are mediated through graphic images. The interview locates these themes within the context of Denis Cosgrove's development as a geographer and his response to debates within the discipline about the roles of imagination, culture and representation within geographies's humanities tradition. Contents Peter Meusburger / Hans Gebhardt: Introduction: Hettner-Lecture 2005 in Heidelberg Denis Cosgrove: Apollo's eye: a cultural geography of the globe Denis Cosgrove: Landscape, culture and modernity Denis Cosgrove: Regional art: Transpennine geography remembered and exhibited Tim Freytag / Heike Joens: Vision and the, culturalae in geography: a biographical interview with Denis Cosgrove The Klaus Tschira Foundations gGmbH u Photographic representations: Hettner-Lecture 2005 u List of participants.

Reading Authority and Representing Rule in Early Modern England

Author : Kevin Sharpe
Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 1441195017
Total Pages : 342 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (411 download)

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Book Synopsis Reading Authority and Representing Rule in Early Modern England by : Kevin Sharpe

Download or read book Reading Authority and Representing Rule in Early Modern England written by Kevin Sharpe and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the publication and reception of authority in early modern England.

Colonial Botany

Author : Londa Schiebinger
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 0812293479
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (122 download)

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Book Synopsis Colonial Botany by : Londa Schiebinger

Download or read book Colonial Botany written by Londa Schiebinger and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early modern world, botany was big science and big business, critical to Europe's national and trade ambitions. Tracing the dynamic relationships among plants, peoples, states, and economies over the course of three centuries, this collection of essays offers a lively challenge to a historiography that has emphasized the rise of modern botany as a story of taxonomies and "pure" systems of classification. Charting a new map of botany along colonial coordinates, reaching from Europe to the New World, India, Asia, and other points on the globe, Colonial Botany explores how the study, naming, cultivation, and marketing of rare and beautiful plants resulted from and shaped European voyages, conquests, global trade, and scientific exploration. From the earliest voyages of discovery, naturalists sought profitable plants for king and country, personal and corporate gain. Costly spices and valuable medicinal plants such as nutmeg, tobacco, sugar, Peruvian bark, peppers, cloves, cinnamon, and tea ranked prominently among the motivations for European voyages of discovery. At the same time, colonial profits depended largely on natural historical exploration and the precise identification and effective cultivation of profitable plants. This volume breaks new ground by treating the development of the science of botany in its colonial context and situating the early modern exploration of the plant world at the volatile nexus of science, commerce, and state politics. Written by scholars as international as their subjects, Colonial Botany uncovers an emerging cultural history of plants and botanical practices in Europe and its possessions.

The Limits of Empire: European Imperial Formations in Early Modern World History

Author : William Reger
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317025334
Total Pages : 415 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis The Limits of Empire: European Imperial Formations in Early Modern World History by : William Reger

Download or read book The Limits of Empire: European Imperial Formations in Early Modern World History written by William Reger and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-03 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, published in honor of historian Geoffrey Parker, explores the working of European empires in a global perspective, focusing on one of the most important themes of Parker’s work: the limits of empire, which is to say, the centrifugal forces - sacral, dynastic, military, diplomatic, geographical, informational - that plagued imperial formations in the early modern period (1500-1800). During this time of wrenching technological, demographic, climatic, and economic change, empires had to struggle with new religious movements, incipient nationalisms, new sea routes, new military technologies, and an evolving state system with complex new rules of diplomacy. Engaging with a host of current debates, the chapters in this book break away from conventional historical conceptions of empire as an essentially western phenomenon with clear demarcation lines between the colonizer and the colonized. These are replaced here by much more fluid and subtle conceptions that highlight complex interplays between coalitions of rulers and ruled. In so doing, the volume builds upon recent work that increasingly suggests that empires simply could not exist without the consent of their imperial subjects, or at least significant groups of them. This was as true for the British Raj as it was for imperial China or Russia. Whilst the thirteen chapters in this book focus on a number of geographic regions and adopt different approaches, each shares a focus on, and interest in, the working of empires and the ways that imperial formations dealt with - or failed to deal with - the challenges that beset them. Taken together, they reflect a new phase in the evolving historiography of empire. They also reflect the scholarly contributions of the dedicatee, Geoffrey Parker, whose life and work are discussed in the introductory chapters and, we’re proud to say, in a delightful chapter by Parker himself, an autobiographical reflection that closes the book.

Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire

Author : Tara Nummedal
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226608573
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (266 download)

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Book Synopsis Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire by : Tara Nummedal

Download or read book Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire written by Tara Nummedal and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What distinguished the true alchemist from the fraud? This question animated the lives and labors of the common men—and occasionally women—who made a living as alchemists in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Holy Roman Empire. As purveyors of practical techniques, inventions, and cures, these entrepreneurs were prized by princely patrons, who relied upon alchemists to bolster their political fortunes. At the same time, satirists, artists, and other commentators used the figure of the alchemist as a symbol for Europe’s social and economic ills. Drawing on criminal trial records, contracts, laboratory inventories, satires, and vernacular alchemical treatises, Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire situates the everyday alchemists, largely invisible to modern scholars until now, at the center of the development of early modern science and commerce. Reconstructing the workaday world of entrepreneurial alchemists, Tara Nummedal shows how allegations of fraud shaped their practices and prospects. These debates not only reveal enormously diverse understandings of what the “real” alchemy was and who could practice it; they also connect a set of little-known practitioners to the largest questions about commerce, trust, and intellectual authority in early modern Europe.