Victoria's bookshelf: history en-US Sun, 28 Feb 2016 12:45:54 -0800 60 Victoria's bookshelf: history 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Art and Society in Italy 1350-1500 (Oxford History of Art)]]> 3824114 picture of the Italian Renaissance by challenging traditional scholarship and placing emphasis on recreating the experience of contemporary the patrons who commissioned the works, the members of the public who viewed them, and the artists who produced them. Art and Society in Italy
1350-1500 dramatically revises the traditional story of the Renaissance and takes into account new issues that have greatly enriched our understanding of the period. From paintings and coins to sculptures and tapestries, Welch examines the issues of materials, workshop practices, and artist-patron
relationships, and explores the ways in which visual imagery related to contemporary sexual, social, and political behavior.]]> 352 Evelyn Welch 0192842455 Victoria 4
A more academic review: written in textbook style and not a particularly advanced one at that, but important for its contribution to the field of Renaissance art history in the same vein as Baxandall, emphasizing that art was created and enjoyed in different ways and under wildly different circumstances in the past than today.]]> 4.44 1997 Art and Society in Italy 1350-1500 (Oxford History of Art)
author: Evelyn Welch
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2009/09/14
date added: 2016/02/28
shelves: 2009, comps-eme, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-italy
review:
This book has the dubious honour of being the one with the picture that made me think the Virgin Mary was hot.

A more academic review: written in textbook style and not a particularly advanced one at that, but important for its contribution to the field of Renaissance art history in the same vein as Baxandall, emphasizing that art was created and enjoyed in different ways and under wildly different circumstances in the past than today.
]]> <![CDATA[The Investiture Controversy: Church and Monarchy from the Ninth to the Twelfth Century (The Middle Ages Series)]]> 4384797 216 Uta-Renate Blumenthal 0812281128 Victoria 3 3.00 1988 The Investiture Controversy: Church and Monarchy from the Ninth to the Twelfth Century (The Middle Ages Series)
author: Uta-Renate Blumenthal
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1988
rating: 3
read at: 2010/02/13
date added: 2015/08/11
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, non-fiction, history-germany, history-italy, history-medieval
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Religion and the Decline of Magic]]> 314105 880 Keith Thomas 0140137440 Victoria 4
In conclusion, still better than Dan Brown.]]> 4.14 1971 Religion and the Decline of Magic
author: Keith Thomas
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1971
rating: 4
read at: 2009/09/28
date added: 2013/12/29
shelves: 2009, comps-eme, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-england
review:
Probably every historian of the Reformation (Protestant, Counter-, or Catholic) knows the contents of this book, even if they've never read it. And it says pretty much what everyone thinks it says, in 800 long and sometimes dull, often sexist, usually racist, and almost always paternalist and condescending language. Nonetheless, it is a very important and groundbreaking work on the culture of magic (et al.) in the premodern period, accounting for its widespread appeal, as well as its social and even political function. Does not actually discuss the decline of magic until the last fifty pages, which Thomas attributes partially to the rise of rationalism, partially to Malinowski's theory of the development of new technologies superseding the uses of magic and increasing human control over the environment, and partially to who the fuck knows, because his sources failed him.

In conclusion, still better than Dan Brown.
]]> <![CDATA[The German Reformation (Studies in European history)]]> 4623916 In recent years, new approaches to the history of the Reformation of the Church have radically altered our understanding of that event within its broadest social and cultural context. In this concise study, R. W. Scribner provides a synthesis of the main research, with special emphasis on the German Reformation, and presents his own interpretation of the period.

]]> 78 Robert W. Scribner 039103362X Victoria 4 4.00 1986 The German Reformation (Studies in European history)
author: Robert W. Scribner
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1986
rating: 4
read at: 2010/02/10
date added: 2013/12/01
shelves: 2010, comps-eme, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-germany
review:
Very brief introduction to the (now outdated) historiography of the German Reformation. Argues that much of the foregoing work has dealt with Protestantism through a teleological lens, which posits a rigid, 17th century Protestantism as the necessary end point to the 16th century Reformations. I disagree that there was any one Protestantism in the 17th century (and therefore disagree with Scribner's assessment of the historiography in that light), but whatever. Raises some good research questions, so would be valuable to an undergraduate audience.
]]> <![CDATA[Unnaturally French: Foreign Citizens in the Old Regime and After]]> 2565383 454 Peter Sahlins 0801488397 Victoria 4 4.17 2004 Unnaturally French: Foreign Citizens in the Old Regime and After
author: Peter Sahlins
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2013/09/09
date added: 2013/09/09
shelves: 2013, history, history-19th-century, history-early-modern, history-france, non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages]]> 128882

The book consists of three parts. The first, "Assembling the National," traces the emergence of territoriality in the Middle Ages and considers monarchical divinity as a precursor to sovereign secular authority. The second part, "Disassembling the National," analyzes economic, legal, technological, and political conditions and projects that are shaping new organizing logics. The third part, "Assemblages of a Global Digital Age," examines particular intersections of the new digital technologies with territory, authority, and rights.


Sweeping in scope, rich in detail, and highly readable, Territory, Authority, Rights is a definitive new statement on globalization that will resonate throughout the social sciences.]]> 512 Saskia Sassen 0691095388 Victoria 2
NOPE.]]> 3.61 2006 Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages
author: Saskia Sassen
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2006
rating: 2
read at: 2013/08/30
date added: 2013/08/30
shelves: 2013, history, non-fiction, theory
review:
This book is practically unreadable, and is an excellent argument against "us[ing] history as a series of natural experiments to raise the level of complexity through which to understand our move into a global age" (404). Oversimplifying and distorting historical fact does not add complexity to anything; it makes me seriously question the validity of your argument even if it is otherwise airtight (and I don't think it is to begin with).

NOPE.
]]> <![CDATA[Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees]]> 330022 Times Literary Supplement]]> 376 Peter Sahlins 0520074157 Victoria 4 3.86 1989 Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees
author: Peter Sahlins
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1989
rating: 4
read at: 2013/08/29
date added: 2013/08/29
shelves: 2013, history, history-19th-century, history-early-modern, history-france, history-spain, non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Colonizer or Colonized: The Hidden Stories of Early Modern French Culture]]> 12153929
This book weaves these two different stories together in a triangulated dynamic. It asks the Ancients to step aside to include the New World other into a larger narrative in which elite France carved out their nation's emerging cultural identity in relation to both the New World and the Ancient World.]]> 328 Sara E. Melzer 0812243633 Victoria 4 3.50 2011 Colonizer or Colonized: The Hidden Stories of Early Modern French Culture
author: Sara E. Melzer
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2013/08/23
date added: 2013/08/23
shelves: 2013, history, history-early-modern, history-france, non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Origins of Courtliness: Civilizing Trends and the Formation of Courtly Ideals, 939-1210 (The Middle Ages Series)]]> 2928002 340 C. Stephen Jaeger 0812279360 Victoria 3 4.00 1985 The Origins of Courtliness: Civilizing Trends and the Formation of Courtly Ideals, 939-1210 (The Middle Ages Series)
author: C. Stephen Jaeger
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1985
rating: 3
read at: 2010/03/13
date added: 2013/07/05
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, history-europe, history-medieval, non-fiction
review:
I was with it right up to the conclusion, when Jaeger argued that while there is no evidence that women had any role in the civilizing process, that they must have been influential in encouraging courtliness in their menfolk because they required (apparently naturally) reservation and moderation in the behaviour of those around them. I seriously question the notion that female reserve and/or moderation is anything but a cultural acquisition that can (and indeed must) be historicized before fully understanding the female role in the development of the male performance of courtliness.
]]> <![CDATA[The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture (Writing Architecture)]]> 10079601 251 Pier Vittorio Aureli 0262515792 Victoria 3 4.21 2011 The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture (Writing Architecture)
author: Pier Vittorio Aureli
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2013/06/19
date added: 2013/06/19
shelves: 2013, history, theory, non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Renovatio Urbis: Architecture, Urbanism and Ceremony in the Rome of Julius II]]> 17579693
This original work explores not just historical sources relating to buildings but also humanist/antiquarian texts, papal sermons/eulogies, inscriptions, frescoes and contemporary maps. An important contribution to current scholarship of early sixteenth century Rome, its urban design and architecture.]]> 352 Nicholas Temple 1136736433 Victoria 2 2.67 2011 Renovatio Urbis: Architecture, Urbanism and Ceremony in the Rome of Julius II
author: Nicholas Temple
name: Victoria
average rating: 2.67
book published: 2011
rating: 2
read at: 2013/06/12
date added: 2013/06/12
shelves: 2013, history, history-rome, history-early-modern, non-fiction
review:
It's fine so long as you remember that this guy isn't a historian. Which is pretty hard to forget, honestly, given how poor his grasp of Roman/Church history is.
]]> <![CDATA[The Vision of Rome in Late Renaissance France]]> 3858706
Examining work by writers such as Du Bellay, Grévin, Montaigne, and Garnier, and by architects and artists such as Philibert de L’Orme and Jean Cousin, Margaret McGowan shows how they drew upon classical ruins and upon their reconstruction not only to reenact past meanings and achievements but also, more dynamically, to interpret the present. She describes how Renaissance Rome, enhanced by the presence of so many signs of ancient grandeur, provided a fertile source of intellectual and artistic creativity. Study of the fragments of the past tempted writers to an imaginative reconstruction of whole forms, while the new structures they created in France revealed the artistic potency of the incomplete and the fragmentary. McGowan carries the underlying themes of the book--perception, impediments to seeing, and artistic transformation--to the end of the sixteenth century, when, she claims, they culminated in the transfer to France of the grandeur that was Rome.]]> 476 Margaret M. McGowan 0300085354 Victoria 3 3.40 2000 The Vision of Rome in Late Renaissance France
author: Margaret M. McGowan
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at: 2013/06/11
date added: 2013/06/11
shelves: 2013, history, history-early-modern, history-france, history-rome, non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Renaissance in Historical Thought: Five Centuries of Interpretation]]> 3047369 For centuries, the idea of a Renaissance at the end of the Middle Ages has been an active agent in shaping conceptions of the development of Western European civilization. Though the idea has enjoyed so long a life, conceptions of the nature of the Renaissance, of its sources, its extent, and its essential spirit have varied from generation to generation. Confined at first to a rebirth of art or of classical culture, the notion of the Renaissance was broadened as scholars of each successive generation added to what they regarded as the essence of modern, as opposed to medieval, civilization.

Originally published in 1948, Wallace K. Ferguson?s The Renaissance in Historical Thought is a key piece of scholarship on Renaissance historiography. Ferguson examines how the Renaissance has been viewed from successive historical and national viewpoints, and by canonical thinkers over the centuries, including François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire and Jacob Burckhardt. Republished as part of the Renaissance Society of America Reprint Text series (RSARTS), Ferguson?s study remains an essential part of Renaissance scholarship and will once again be available for students and scholars in the field.

]]> 429 Wallace K. Ferguson 0404148875 Victoria 3
Extremely dated overview of the history of Renaissance historiography, but nonetheless a fairly good synthesis of all the crap histories that no one ever wants to read but ought to know about anyway. Still somewhat thrown by his apparently positive view of Chamberlain's introduction of racial theory to the study of Renaissance history, which is icky in the extreme. Also strongly disagree with his lauding of Jacob Burckhardt, but that is to be expected from some sixty years on.]]> 3.50 1948 Renaissance in Historical Thought: Five Centuries of Interpretation
author: Wallace K. Ferguson
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1948
rating: 3
read at: 2009/08/28
date added: 2013/06/10
shelves: 2009, history, comps-eme, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-historiography
review:
This book legitimately makes me wish for death.

Extremely dated overview of the history of Renaissance historiography, but nonetheless a fairly good synthesis of all the crap histories that no one ever wants to read but ought to know about anyway. Still somewhat thrown by his apparently positive view of Chamberlain's introduction of racial theory to the study of Renaissance history, which is icky in the extreme. Also strongly disagree with his lauding of Jacob Burckhardt, but that is to be expected from some sixty years on.
]]> <![CDATA[The Market and the City: Square, Street and Architecture in Early Modern Europe (Historical Urban Studies Series)]]> 3595361 332 Donatella Calabi 075460893X Victoria 3 3.33 2004 The Market and the City: Square, Street and Architecture in Early Modern Europe (Historical Urban Studies Series)
author: Donatella Calabi
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2013/05/17
shelves: 2013, history, history-early-modern, history-europe, non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World]]> 2051419 Vermeer's Hat shows just how rich this inventory was, and how the urge to acquire such things was refashioning the world more powerfully than we have yet understood.]]> 288 Timothy Brook 1596914440 Victoria 3 3.84 2007 Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World
author: Timothy Brook
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2013/02/13
shelves: history, history-early-modern, history-world, non-fiction, 2013
review:

]]> Spanish Rome, 1500-1700 1125521
Reconstructing the large Spanish community in Rome during this period, the book reveals the strategies used by the Spanish monarchs and their agents that successfully brought Rome and the papacy under their control. Spanish ambassadors, courtiers, and merchants in Rome carried out a subtle but effective conquest by means of a distinctive “informal� imperialism, which relied largely on patronage politics. As Spain’s power grew, Rome enjoyed enormous gains as well, and the close relations they developed became a powerful influence on the political, social, economic, and religious life not only of the Iberian and Italian peninsulas but also of Catholic Reformation Europe as a whole.]]> 320 Thomas James Dandelet 0300089562 Victoria 2 3.50 2001 Spanish Rome, 1500-1700
author: Thomas James Dandelet
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2001
rating: 2
read at: 2011/03/09
date added: 2012/12/17
shelves: 2011, history, history-early-modern, history-italy, history-spain, non-fiction, 2012
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice and Istanbul]]> 13415620
Rothman argues that the period from 1570 to 1670 witnessed a gradual transformation in how Ottoman difference was conceived within Venetian institutions. Thanks in part to the activities of trans-imperial subjects, an early emphasis on juridical and commercial criteria gave way to conceptions of difference based on religion and language. Rothman begins her story in Venice's bustling marketplaces, where commercial brokers often defied the state's efforts both to tax foreign merchants and define Venetian citizenship. The story continues in a Venetian charitable institution where converts from Islam and Judaism and their Catholic Venetian patrons negotiated their mutual transformation. The story ends with Venice's diplomatic interpreters, the dragomans, who not only produced and disseminated knowledge about the Ottomans but also created dense networks of kinship and patronage across imperial boundaries. Rothman's new conceptual and empirical framework sheds light on institutional practices for managing juridical, religious, and ethnolinguistic difference in the Mediterranean and beyond.]]> 328 E. Natalie Rothman 0801449073 Victoria 5 3.91 2011 Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice and Istanbul
author: E. Natalie Rothman
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2012/12/05
date added: 2012/12/10
shelves: 2012, history, history-early-modern, history-italy, history-middle-east, non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Women, family, and ritual in Renaissance Italy]]> 4968076 English, French (translation) 338 Christiane Klapisch-Zuber 0226439259 Victoria 3 3.00 1985 Women, family, and ritual in Renaissance Italy
author: Christiane Klapisch-Zuber
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1985
rating: 3
read at: 2010/03/16
date added: 2012/12/07
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, history-early-modern, history-italy, history-medieval, history-gender, non-fiction
review:
Very probably groundbreaking at the time, but now mostly useful to see where many of the current debates began and how they have developed in the past 20-30 years. Sadly, nothing will ever convince me that the Florentine catasto is not dull.
]]> <![CDATA[HISTORY OF DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY]]> 2843300
The expansion of the international community has meant the inclusion of nations with different traditions and few common values. Law no longer serves as a metaphor for the international community nor does it incarnate the community's vision of itself as it did in the past.]]> 704 Linda S. Frey 0814207405 Victoria 2 3.50 1999 HISTORY OF DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY
author: Linda S. Frey
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1999
rating: 2
read at: 2012/08/16
date added: 2012/08/16
shelves: 2012, history, history-europe, non-fiction
review:
Not entirely accurate since I only read the first half, but wow, this book is pretty bad: poorly argued, contradictory, and full of overwrought and deliberately obfuscatory prose.
]]> <![CDATA[Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (New Approaches to European History, Series Number 41)]]> 6388366 358 Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks 052187372X Victoria 3 3.80 1993 Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (New Approaches to European History, Series Number 41)
author: Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1993
rating: 3
read at: 2011/11/01
date added: 2012/05/26
shelves: 2011, history, history-early-modern, history-europe, history-gender, non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Changing Lives: Women in European History Since 1700]]> 1175185 576 Bonnie G. Smith 0669145610 Victoria 2 3.71 1988 Changing Lives: Women in European History Since 1700
author: Bonnie G. Smith
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1988
rating: 2
read at: 2012/04/02
date added: 2012/04/02
shelves: 2012, history, history-19th-century, history-20th-century, history-europe, history-germany, history-gender, non-fiction
review:
Pretty pathetically out of date.
]]> <![CDATA[The Last Days of the Renaissance: & the March to Modernity]]> 261954 280 Theodore K. Rabb 0465068014 Victoria 2 3.34 2006 The Last Days of the Renaissance: & the March to Modernity
author: Theodore K. Rabb
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2006
rating: 2
read at: 2012/02/20
date added: 2012/02/20
shelves: 2012, history, history-early-modern, history-europe, history-historiography, non-fiction
review:
A tremendously conservative book.
]]> <![CDATA[The Black Death: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe]]> 2670291 The Black Death traces the causes and far-reaching consequences of this infamous outbreak of plague that spread across the continent of Europe from 1347 to 1351. Drawing on sources as diverse as monastic manuscripts and dendrochronological studies (which measure growth rings in trees), historian Robert S. Gottfried demonstrates how a bacillus transmitted by rat fleas brought on an ecological reign of terror -- killing one European in three, wiping out entire villages and towns, and rocking the foundation of medieval society and civilization.

]]> 203 Robert Steven Gottfried 0029126304 Victoria 3 3.39 1983 The Black Death: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe
author: Robert Steven Gottfried
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.39
book published: 1983
rating: 3
read at: 2010/02/19
date added: 2012/02/12
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, non-fiction, history-medieval, history-europe
review:
A solid overview of the impact of the Black Death on the society, politics, economy and culture of Europe into the sixteenth century. Argues that it was sufficiently massive a crisis that it irrevocably altered European society, breaking down older bonds and forms of social organization, the recreation of which ultimately led to the construction of a modern European society. Not entirely convincing in many aspects, but does capture the major demographic, epidemiological, and cultural shifts that occurred as a result of the plague and its recurrences.
]]> <![CDATA[Papal Justice: Subjects and Courts in the Papal State, 1500-1750]]> 10419277 312 Irene Fosi 0813218586 Victoria 3
- synthetic reading of the sources obviates the possibility for in-depth discussion of any of the thematic issues raised in each chapter; instead, each chapter contributes to an overall synthetic argument about the disjointed nature of early modern justice, which is already well known;

- poorly sourced, so it's not possible to trace the broader discussions that she alludes to;

- poorly defined chronology: claims to begin in 1500, but little discussion of anything before the 1540s (possibly the nature of the sources -- the Governor's tribunal's records only go back to 1542, and of course the Holy Office was only established in that year); never really explained how the period up to 1750 hangs together beyond the fact that it's all (arguably) "early modern";

- alludes to some mythologizing of the contrast between justice in decadent, baroque Rome and justice in rational, enlightened somewhere-else, but doesn't actually go anywhere with it.

Basically, it contained some really cool case studies but little else of any substance.]]> 3.67 2007 Papal Justice: Subjects and Courts in the Papal State, 1500-1750
author: Irene Fosi
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2012/01/15
date added: 2012/01/14
shelves: 2012, history, history-italy, history-early-modern, history-rome, non-fiction
review:
Very engaging synthesis, but not without problems:

- synthetic reading of the sources obviates the possibility for in-depth discussion of any of the thematic issues raised in each chapter; instead, each chapter contributes to an overall synthetic argument about the disjointed nature of early modern justice, which is already well known;

- poorly sourced, so it's not possible to trace the broader discussions that she alludes to;

- poorly defined chronology: claims to begin in 1500, but little discussion of anything before the 1540s (possibly the nature of the sources -- the Governor's tribunal's records only go back to 1542, and of course the Holy Office was only established in that year); never really explained how the period up to 1750 hangs together beyond the fact that it's all (arguably) "early modern";

- alludes to some mythologizing of the contrast between justice in decadent, baroque Rome and justice in rational, enlightened somewhere-else, but doesn't actually go anywhere with it.

Basically, it contained some really cool case studies but little else of any substance.
]]> The Sack of Rome 1527 1547481 ]]> 348 Judith Hook 1403917698 Victoria 0
But maybe it will get better the more I read. :|]]> 4.22 1972 The Sack of Rome 1527
author: Judith Hook
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1972
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/01/12
shelves: currently-reading, 2012, history, history-europe, history-italy, history-rome, history-early-modern, non-fiction
review:
This book is pretty terrible in terms of both argument (that the Sack of Rome in 1527 led to a new "national" consciousness among Italians -- are you joking) and execution, being poorly researched and betraying a really very facile understanding of both Roman and peninsular politics in the early 16th century.

But maybe it will get better the more I read. :|
]]> <![CDATA[YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT: AGENTS IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE.]]> 5481242 167 Hans Cools 9065509089 Victoria 3
Also, I don't understand why this title is in caps when it's not even worth the excitement.]]> 3.00 YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT: AGENTS IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE.
author: Hans Cools
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2012/01/11
date added: 2012/01/11
shelves: 2012, history, history-europe, history-early-modern, non-fiction
review:
Book of conference papers reads like a book of conference papers. Very conversational and inconclusive, and ultimately not terribly useful or interesting.

Also, I don't understand why this title is in caps when it's not even worth the excitement.
]]> <![CDATA[Storia di Roma dall'antichitĂ  a oggi: Roma del Rinascimento]]> 9739540 459 Antonio Pinelli 8842064238 Victoria 0 4.00 2001 Storia di Roma dall'antichitĂ  a oggi: Roma del Rinascimento
author: Antonio Pinelli
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at: 2012/01/02
date added: 2012/01/02
shelves: 2011, history, history-early-modern, history-italy, non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality, and Colonization]]> 4434598 The Darker Side of the Renaissance weaves together literature, semiotics, history, historiography, cartography, geography, and cultural theory to examine the role of language in the colonization of the New World.
Walter D. Mignolo locates the privileging of European forms of literacy at the heart of New World colonization. He examines how alphabetic writing is linked with the exercise of power, what role "the book" has played in colonial relations, and the many connections between writing, social organization, and political control. It has long been acknowledged that Amerindians were at a disadvantage in facing European invaders because native cultures did not employ the same kind of texts (hence "knowledge") that were validated by the Europeans. Yet no study until this one has so thoroughly analyzed either the process or the implications of conquest and destruction through sign systems.
Starting with the contrasts between Amerindian and European writing systems, Mignolo moves through such topics as the development of Spanish grammar, the different understandings of the book as object and text, principles of genre in history-writing, and an analysis of linguistic descriptions and mapping techniques in relation to the construction of territoriality and understandings of cultural space.
The Darker Side of the Renaissance will significantly challenge commonplace understandings of New World history. More importantly, it will continue to stimulate and provide models for new colonial and post-colonial scholarship.
". . . a contribution to Renaissance studies of the first order. The field will have to reckon with it for years to come, for it will unquestionably become the point of departure for discussion not only on the foundations and achievements of the Renaissance but also on the effects and influences on colonized cultures." -- Journal of Hispanic/ Latino Theology
Walter D. Mignolo is Professor in the Department of Romance Studies and the Program in Literature, Duke University.]]> 448 Walter D. Mignolo 047210327X Victoria 4
That said, this book is nowhere near so terrifyingly dense or incomprehensible as I had been led to believe it would be. Argues that the modern Occidentalization of the world can be traced back to the Renaissance, when the European struggle to comprehend the "new world" they had just "discovered" led to the gradual erasure of subaltern systems of knowledge, presumably due to the total lack of agency on the part of the subalterns themselves. (Guha spins... in his desk chair?) Enjoyable, but hugely problematic as a work of subaltern history. Reads very much like a postmodern lament for all the lost sources.]]> 4.50 1995 The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality, and Colonization
author: Walter D. Mignolo
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at: 2010/02/16
date added: 2011/10/11
shelves: 2010, comps-eme, history, non-fiction, theory, history-early-modern
review:
Categorizing this under "theory" because it's utterly choked with pomo and poco bullshit jargon that does more to obscure the meaning of the text than to elucidate in any helpful way the hermeneutics of Mignolo's approach. In this case, theory is a dirty word.

That said, this book is nowhere near so terrifyingly dense or incomprehensible as I had been led to believe it would be. Argues that the modern Occidentalization of the world can be traced back to the Renaissance, when the European struggle to comprehend the "new world" they had just "discovered" led to the gradual erasure of subaltern systems of knowledge, presumably due to the total lack of agency on the part of the subalterns themselves. (Guha spins... in his desk chair?) Enjoyable, but hugely problematic as a work of subaltern history. Reads very much like a postmodern lament for all the lost sources.
]]> <![CDATA[Public Life in Toulouse, 1463-1789: From Municipal Republic to Cosmopolitan City]]> 1087465 Robert A. Schneider 0801421918 Victoria 0 5.00 1990 Public Life in Toulouse, 1463-1789: From Municipal Republic to Cosmopolitan City
author: Robert A. Schneider
name: Victoria
average rating: 5.00
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at: 2007/12/01
date added: 2011/09/28
shelves: abandoned, 2007, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-france
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women]]> 345768
Previous scholars have occasionally noted the various phenomena in isolation from each other and have sometimes applied modern medical or psychological theories to them. Using materials based on saints' lives and the religious and mystical writings of medieval women and men, Caroline Walker Bynum uncovers the pattern lying behind these aspects of women's religiosity and behind the fascination men and women felt for such miracles and devotional practices. She argues that food lies at the heart of much of women's piety. Women renounced ordinary food through fasting in order to prepare for receiving extraordinary food in the eucharist. They also offered themselves as food in miracles of feeding and bodily manipulation.

Providing both functionalist and phenomenological explanations, Bynum explores the ways in which food practices enabled women to exert control within the family and to define their religious vocations. She also describes what women meant by seeing their own bodies and God's body as food and what men meant when they too associated women with food and flesh. The author's interpretation of women's piety offers a new view of the nature of medieval asceticism and, drawing upon both anthropology and feminist theory, she illuminates the distinctive features of women's use of symbols. Rejecting presentist interpretations of women as exploited or masochistic, she shows the power and creativity of women's writing and women's lives.]]> 499 Caroline Walker Bynum 0520063295 Victoria 4 4.20 1987 Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women
author: Caroline Walker Bynum
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1987
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2011/09/19
shelves: 2007, history, history-medieval
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400�1680 (Studies in Comparative World History)]]> 1860943 349 John K. Thornton 0521398649 Victoria 4
That said, the book is nowhere near as racially dodgy as the cover might suggest. First part aims at a Braudelian total history of the Atlantic world; second half discusses African agency in the Atlantic slave trade, as traders and as slaves. Grants tremendous agency to Africans, arguing that the Atlantic economy was not always and incommensurably dominated by Europe.]]> 3.80 1992 Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1680 (Studies in Comparative World History)
author: John K. Thornton
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2010/02/18
date added: 2011/09/16
shelves: 2010, comps-eme, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-africa
review:
This cover is... questionable.

That said, the book is nowhere near as racially dodgy as the cover might suggest. First part aims at a Braudelian total history of the Atlantic world; second half discusses African agency in the Atlantic slave trade, as traders and as slaves. Grants tremendous agency to Africans, arguing that the Atlantic economy was not always and incommensurably dominated by Europe.
]]> <![CDATA[Civic Politics in the Rome of Urban VIII (Princeton Legacy Library)]]> 1058680 316 Laurie Nussdorfer 0691031827 Victoria 4 4.67 1992 Civic Politics in the Rome of Urban VIII (Princeton Legacy Library)
author: Laurie Nussdorfer
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.67
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2011/06/14
date added: 2011/06/14
shelves: 2011, history, history-italy, history-early-modern, history-rome, non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Voracious Idols and Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg, and Basel]]> 1134146 Lee Palmer Wandel 0521472229 Victoria 4 4.00 1994 Voracious Idols and Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg, and Basel
author: Lee Palmer Wandel
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1994
rating: 4
read at: 2007/01/01
date added: 2011/06/05
shelves: non-fiction, history, 2007, history-early-modern, history-france, history-switzerland
review:

]]> The Renaissance in Rome 1270587
"Brilliant synthesis. A must." --Bibliotheque L'Humanisme et Renaissance

..". no book in English or otherwise covers the breadth of Renaissance Rome as this one does. It will be definitive for a long time." --Church History

..". attractively presented... stimulating... " --Renaissance Studies

"In lively prose... the author paints a complex multilayered image of compelling vividness." --History of European Ideas

A distinctively Roman Renaissance starting in the middle of the fifteenth century is the subject of Charles Stinger's celebrated study. Cultural history at its best, The Renaissance in Rome will inform both Renaissance and Reformation scholars, as well as general readers fascinated and affected by the Eternal City.]]> 480 Charles L. Stinger 0253212081 Victoria 0 3.94 1985 The Renaissance in Rome
author: Charles L. Stinger
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/05/14
shelves: 2009, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-italy, abandoned
review:
I do not understand how this book is so boring. And yet! I just can't get through it.
]]> <![CDATA[Brokers of Public Trust: Notaries in Early Modern Rome]]> 7810248 368 Laurie Nussdorfer 080189204X Victoria 4 4.50 2009 Brokers of Public Trust: Notaries in Early Modern Rome
author: Laurie Nussdorfer
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2011/05/01
date added: 2011/04/30
shelves: 2011, history, history-early-modern, history-italy, non-fiction, history-rome
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Pope's Men: The Papal Civil Service in the Renaissance]]> 3802141 288 Peter Partner 0198219954 Victoria 4 3.67 1990 The Pope's Men: The Papal Civil Service in the Renaissance
author: Peter Partner
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at: 2011/03/07
date added: 2011/03/09
shelves: 2011, history, history-europe, history-italy, non-fiction, history-early-modern
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Habitatores In Urbe: The Population Of Renaissance Rome = La Popolazione Di Roma Nel Rinascimento]]> 10465261 0 Egmont Lee 8887242844 Victoria 4 4.00 Habitatores In Urbe: The Population Of Renaissance Rome = La Popolazione Di Roma Nel Rinascimento
author: Egmont Lee
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2011/02/16
date added: 2011/02/16
shelves: 2011, history, history-italy, non-fiction
review:
It seems sort of ridiculous to rate what is effectively a printed edition of the Roman pseudo-census of 1517 and census of 1527, but whatever, I read it, and it was awesome.
]]> <![CDATA[Christian Slaves,Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean,the Barbary Coast,and Italy,1500-1800 (Early Modern History: Society and Culture)]]> 637714 ]]> 276 Robert C. Davis 1403945519 Victoria 0 4.05 2003 Christian Slaves,Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean,the Barbary Coast,and Italy,1500-1800 (Early Modern History: Society and Culture)
author: Robert C. Davis
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/02/06
shelves: history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-italy, history-middle-east
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Rural economy and country life in the medieval West;]]> 5007053 1000 Georges Duby 071315120X Victoria 3 3.00 1968 Rural economy and country life in the medieval West;
author: Georges Duby
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1968
rating: 3
read at: 2010/02/21
date added: 2010/12/05
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, non-fiction, history-europe, history-medieval
review:
As with most books of this kind, nothing to write home about. Very solid, basic overview of the medieval economy -- probably a good handbook for anyone who actually gives a shit, but mostly raises a lot of historiographical and methodological questions that I don't actually care to answer or have answered.
]]> <![CDATA[A Short History of Renaissance and Reformation Europe: Dances Over Fire and Water]]> 2512852 360 Jonathan W. Zophy 0136056288 Victoria 1 3.49 1995 A Short History of Renaissance and Reformation Europe: Dances Over Fire and Water
author: Jonathan W. Zophy
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.49
book published: 1995
rating: 1
read at: 2010/09/20
date added: 2010/09/20
shelves: 2010, history, history-early-modern, history-europe, non-fiction
review:
This book is terrible. Full of typos (Giogio Vasari; Corpus Christy; etc.), factual errors, and unforgivable leaps of logic and lapses in analysis. It's because of textbooks like this that students come away from courses on the Ren & Ref without any real understanding of the historical causality. Or how to spell.
]]> The Autumn of the Middle Ages 146738
The Autumn of the Middle Ages is Johan Huizinga's classic portrait of life, thought, and art in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century France and the Netherlands. Few who have read this book in English realize that The Waning of the Middle Ages, the only previous translation, is vastly different from the original Dutch, and incompatible will all other European-language translations.

For Huizinga, the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century marked not the birth of a dramatically new era in history—the Renaissance—but the fullest, ripest phase of medieval life and thought. However, his work was criticized both at home and in Europe for being "old-fashioned" and "too literary" when The Waning of the Middle Ages was first published in 1919. In the 1924 translation, Fritz Hopman adapted, reduced and altered the Dutch edition—softening Huizinga's passionate arguments, dulling his nuances, and eliminating theoretical passages. He dropped many passages Huizinga had quoted in their original old French. Additionally, chapters were rearranged, all references were dropped, and mistranslations were introduced.

This translation corrects such errors, recreating the second Dutch edition which represents Huizinga's thinking at its most important stage. Everything that was dropped or rearranged has been restored. Prose quotations appear in French, with translations preprinted at the bottom of the page, mistranslations have been corrected.

"The advantages of the new translation are so many. . . . It is one of the greatest, as well as one of the most enthralling, historical classics of the twentieth century, and everyone will surely want to read it in the form that was obviously intended by the author." —Francis Haskell, New York Review of Books

"A once pathbreaking piece of historical interpretation. . . . This new translation will no doubt bring Huizinga and his pioneering work back into the discussion of historical interpretation." —Rosamond McKitterick, New York Times Book Review]]> 467 Johan Huizinga 0226359921 Victoria 1 went away entirely) that add up to a distorted and unhistorical picture of the era.]]> 4.03 1919 The Autumn of the Middle Ages
author: Johan Huizinga
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1919
rating: 1
read at: 2010/02/22
date added: 2010/08/01
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, non-fiction, history-medieval, history-europe
review:
Severely dated, conceptually stunted, and deeply methodologically flawed. Burckhardtian in its attempt to capture the "mood" of the late middle ages, but based on a number of false premises (primarily, that the Renaissance was in any way secular, and that it lacked continuity with the culture of the middle ages, which apparently decayed and actually went away entirely) that add up to a distorted and unhistorical picture of the era.
]]> <![CDATA[The Protestant Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Italy (Sixteenth-century Essays & Studies, 43)]]> 3312858 449 Salvatore Caponetto 0940474581 Victoria 3 3.00 1992 The Protestant Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Italy (Sixteenth-century Essays & Studies, 43)
author: Salvatore Caponetto
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1992
rating: 3
read at: 2008/05/01
date added: 2010/05/08
shelves: 2008, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-italy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Poor in the Middle Ages: An Essay in Social History]]> 5239313 English, French (translation) 336 Michel Mollat 0300027893 Victoria 4 4.00 1978 The Poor in the Middle Ages: An Essay in Social History
author: Michel Mollat
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1978
rating: 4
read at: 2010/04/01
date added: 2010/05/08
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, history-europe, history-medieval, non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Trent and All That: Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era]]> 3084151 240 John W. O'Malley 0674000870 Victoria 5 4.57 2000 Trent and All That: Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era
author: John W. O'Malley
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2008/06/18
date added: 2010/05/07
shelves: 2008, non-fiction, theory, history, comps-eme, 2010, history-historiography, history-europe, history-early-modern
review:
Re-read January 18, 2010. I love this book. One part historiography, one part AWESOME. Effectively argues that the labels heretofore applied to the study of Catholicism in the early modern era have been unnecessary restrictive, and treat the issue largely in terms of institutions and with direct reference to the Protestant Reformation: Catholic Reformation, Counter Reformation, Tridentine Catholicism, Confessional Catholicism, etc. All of this really obscures other layers to early modern Catholicism, e.g. the laity, the missionizing, the participation of women. Proposes as a catch-all the label "early modern Catholicism", which encompasses all of these things and allows the study of the various sub-fields to proceed in a new way.
]]> <![CDATA[History in Practice (Hodder Arnold Publication)]]> 1346845 272 Ludmilla Jordanova 0340814349 Victoria 4 3.06 2000 History in Practice (Hodder Arnold Publication)
author: Ludmilla Jordanova
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.06
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2007/08/01
date added: 2010/05/07
shelves: non-fiction, history, 2007, history-historiography
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Witches and Neighbors: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft]]> 1183889 456 Robin Briggs 0670835897 Victoria 4
Argues that there was no culture of the occult in early modern Europe, but that witchcraft was instead a construct that was culturally located, and which was developed in reaction to social pressures. The types of witches and forms of witchcraft denounced were variable across regions and confessions; it is impossible to speak of a single model of witchcraft that held across Europe. Argues, finally (although this thread is dropped part-way through the book), that accusations of witchcraft declined less as a result of the spread of Enlightened ideas, and more as a result of social reorganization that diminished the particular kinds of pressures that led neighbours to denounce one another as witches. Argues that as a social fiction, witchcraft functions only in reasonably endogamous societies where social frictions are seldom eased but explosively.]]> 3.56 1996 Witches and Neighbors: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft
author: Robin Briggs
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at: 2010/02/03
date added: 2010/05/07
shelves: 2010, history, comps-eme, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-europe, history-gender
review:
This book is on a reading list for the class I TA, so the copy I read has evidently been used by a whole generation of undergrads, with the marginalia to prove it. On the page facing the conclusion is a drawing of Harry Potter, with the caption: "today is my birthday!" Conclusion: undergrads are ridiculous, and this book is very brightly coloured as a result.

Argues that there was no culture of the occult in early modern Europe, but that witchcraft was instead a construct that was culturally located, and which was developed in reaction to social pressures. The types of witches and forms of witchcraft denounced were variable across regions and confessions; it is impossible to speak of a single model of witchcraft that held across Europe. Argues, finally (although this thread is dropped part-way through the book), that accusations of witchcraft declined less as a result of the spread of Enlightened ideas, and more as a result of social reorganization that diminished the particular kinds of pressures that led neighbours to denounce one another as witches. Argues that as a social fiction, witchcraft functions only in reasonably endogamous societies where social frictions are seldom eased but explosively.
]]> On Deep History and the Brain 6064980 286 Daniel Lord Smail 0520258126 Victoria 4 3.91 2007 On Deep History and the Brain
author: Daniel Lord Smail
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2010/04/26
date added: 2010/04/26
shelves: 2010, history, history-historiography, history-world, non-fiction, theory
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe 900 - 1300]]> 3344054 462 Susan Reynolds 0198731477 Victoria 4 3.85 1984 Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe 900 - 1300
author: Susan Reynolds
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1984
rating: 4
read at: 2010/04/07
date added: 2010/04/07
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, history-europe, history-medieval, non-fiction
review:
One thing I really like about Susan Reynolds is her total fearlessness about the possibility of being wrong.
]]> <![CDATA[Images of the Medieval Peasant (Figurae: Reading Medieval Culture)]]> 244021 482 Paul Freedman 0804733732 Victoria 4 3.67 1999 Images of the Medieval Peasant (Figurae: Reading Medieval Culture)
author: Paul Freedman
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2010/04/02
date added: 2010/04/02
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, history-europe, history-medieval, non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Power and Deviance in Western Europe, 950-1250]]> 712196 176 R.I. Moore 0631171452 Victoria 4 3.88 1988 The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Power and Deviance in Western Europe, 950-1250
author: R.I. Moore
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at: 2010/04/02
date added: 2010/04/02
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, history-europe, history-medieval, history-jewish, non-fiction
review:
Demolishes the old truism (which I had never encountered) that persecution of heretics, lepers and Jews began in earnest in the 11th and 12th centuries as a result of the concurrent increase in population and power of the same. Argues instead that the practice of persecution was the result of a new European mindset to expel the Other and thereby protect the integrity of the community. Not entirely borne out, and actually blatantly contradicted in the last few pages of the text, which argue that persecution of Jews in England occurred as a result of the particular Christian vulnerability (cultural, intellectual, political, economic) vis-a-vis the Jews.
]]> <![CDATA[The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading]]> 704243 Jonathan Riley-Smith 1852855983 Victoria 3 3.00 The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading
author: Jonathan Riley-Smith
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2010/03/31
date added: 2010/03/30
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, history-europe, history-medieval, history-jewish, history-middle-east, non-fiction
review:
Mostly narrative, not deeply analytical, and, in empathizing with the crusaders themselves, does not properly contextualize or problematize the actual violence of the First Crusade. Problematic treatment of the slaughter of the Jews in 1096.
]]> <![CDATA[Crusade and Mission: European Approaches Toward the Muslims (Princeton Legacy Library)]]> 2694003
Originally published in 1984.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.]]> 264 Benjamin Z. Kedar 0691102465 Victoria 3 3.70 1984 Crusade and Mission: European Approaches Toward the Muslims (Princeton Legacy Library)
author: Benjamin Z. Kedar
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1984
rating: 3
read at: 2010/03/29
date added: 2010/03/28
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, history-europe, history-medieval, history-middle-east, non-fiction
review:
Opens with a really interesting discussion of the development of anti-Islamic polemic and the crusading/missionizing mentality, but completely runs out of steam at the end. Plodding final chapter that really only manages to weave together the earlier threads in the last few pages: argues that attempts to convert Muslims in the Middle East failed because Catholic Christendom lacked the military and cultural might to force the issue.
]]> Communities of Violence 712166
Nirenberg's readings of archival and literary sources demonstrates how violence set the terms and limits of coexistence for medieval minorities. The particular and contingent nature of this coexistence is underscored by the book's juxtapositions--some systematic (for example, that of the Crown of Aragon with France, Jew with Muslim, medieval with modern), and some suggestive (such as African ritual rebellion with Catalan riots). Throughout, the book questions the applicability of dichotomies like tolerance versus intolerance to the Middle Ages, and suggests the limitations of those analyses that look for the origins of modern European persecutory violence in the medieval past.]]> 312 David Nirenberg 069105889X Victoria 5 4.05 1996 Communities of Violence
author: David Nirenberg
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at: 2010/03/27
date added: 2010/03/27
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, history-france, history-jewish, history-medieval, history-spain, non-fiction
review:
Study of majority-minority relations in 14th century France and Spain, with a particular focus on Christian-Jewish-Muslim relations in the Crown of Aragon. Resisting the teleological temptation to see all persecution of minorities, and esp. of Jews, in light of later persecutions, esp. the expulsion of 1492 and the Holocaust. Nirenberg argues that interethnic violence, far from being meaningless and the result of irrational impulses, is imbued with cultural and ritual meaning and illuminates medieval ideas about kingship, the boundaries of the community, sexuality, and the role of evil, deviance, and sin in the construction of Christian society.
]]> <![CDATA[An Economic History of Medieval Europe]]> 2659270 552 Norman J.G. Pounds 0582215994 Victoria 3 3.64 1973 An Economic History of Medieval Europe
author: Norman J.G. Pounds
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1973
rating: 3
read at: 2010/03/27
date added: 2010/03/27
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, history-europe, history-medieval, non-fiction
review:
General introduction to the economic history of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. Nothing particularly groundbreaking (as ever when it comes to macroeconomics and demography?) but a useful reference.
]]> <![CDATA[Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages]]> 5072671
At stake was the longstanding, originally Jewish, "myth of the interfaith utopia" in which medieval Muslims and Jews peacefully cohabited in Arab lands - a utopia that many Arabs claimed had continued until the emergence of modern Zionism. Some Jewish writers challenged this notion with a "countermyth of Islamic persecution, " suggesting that Jews fared not much better socially and politically under Islamic rule than they did under Christendom.

Full of implications for Jewish, Islamic, and European historians, both myths form the backdrop of this provocative book aimed at enriching our understanding of medieval gentile-Jewish relations. Addressing general readers and specialists alike, Mark Cohen offers the first in-depth explanation of why medieval Islamic-Jewish relations, though not utopic, were less confrontational and violent than those between Christians and Jews in the West.

Cohen presents a systematic comparison of the legal, economic, and social situations of Jews in medieval Islam and Christendom, offering particularly fresh insights on issues of hierarchy, marginality, and ethnicity and on the topic of persecution and collective memory.

His analysis includes differences in theology that helped influence the way Muslims and Christians treated Jews. Written for a broad audience, this book draws on many salient primary sources, which let the voices of medieval Islam, Christendom, and the Jews speak for themselves.]]> 304 Mark R. Cohen 0691033781 Victoria 5 4.50 1994 Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages
author: Mark R. Cohen
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at: 2010/03/16
date added: 2010/03/16
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, history-europe, history-jewish, history-middle-east, history-medieval, non-fiction
review:
Really important book, especially for its introduction and opening chapter on the myth/counter-myth of Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations, and the modern political developments that have led to the propagation of lachrymose/neo-lachrymose history. Did not necessarily learn anything I didn't already know from the European perspective, but the Muslim perspective was fascinating.
]]> <![CDATA[Women and Power in the Middle Ages]]> 742872
Reassessing the conventional definition of power that has shaped such portrayals, Women and Power in the Middle Ages reveals the varied manifestations of female power in the medieval household and community―from the cultural power wielded by the wives of Venetian patriarchs to the economic power of English peasant women and the religious power of female saints. Among the specific topics addresses are Griselda's manipulation of silence as power in Chaucer's "The Clerk's Tale"; the extensive networks of influence devised by Lady Honor Lisle; and the role of medieval women book owners as arbiters of lay piety and ambassadors of culture. In every case, the essays seek to transcend simple polarities of public and private, male and female, in order to provide a more realistic analysis of the workings of power in feudal society.]]> 288 Mary C. Erler 0820323810 Victoria 3 3.62 1988 Women and Power in the Middle Ages
author: Mary C. Erler
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1988
rating: 3
read at: 2010/03/15
date added: 2010/03/15
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, history-europe, history-medieval, non-fiction, history-gender
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Laity in the Middle Ages, The: Religious Beliefs and Devotional Practices (Professional Services)]]> 2235446 370 André Vauchez 0268012970 Victoria 4 4.00 1993 Laity in the Middle Ages, The: Religious Beliefs and Devotional Practices (Professional Services)
author: André Vauchez
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at: 2010/03/14
date added: 2010/03/14
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, history-europe, history-france, history-medieval, non-fiction
review:
Fascinating collection of articles, mostly published elsewhere but translated for the first time. Ranges over the broad experience of lay religion in the middle ages, treating changes with sensitivity not only to reorganization within the ecclesiastical hierarchy but also to other outside forces, like domestic and international politics.
]]> <![CDATA[Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation, Third Edition]]> 1379977 Malcolm Lambert 0631222758 Victoria 3 3.00 1977 Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation, Third Edition
author: Malcolm Lambert
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1977
rating: 3
read at: 2010/03/14
date added: 2010/03/13
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, history-england, history-europe, history-italy, history-medieval, non-fiction, history-czech
review:
Not deeply convinced of his argument that all western heresies derived from anticlerical sentiment, largely brought on by the recognition that the Gregorian reforms were practically unattainable. I wonder how Christopher Haigh would feel about this.
]]> <![CDATA[The Ties That Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England]]> 712162
Using a remarkable array of sources, including over 3,000 coroners' inquests into accidental deaths, Hanawalt emphasizes the continuity of the nuclear family from the middle ages into the modern period by exploring the reasons that families served as the basic unit of society and the economy. Providing such fascinating details as a citation of an incantation against rats, evidence of the hierarchy of bread consumption, and descriptions of the games people played, her study illustrates the flexibility of the family and its capacity to adapt to radical changes in society. She notes that even the terrible population reduction that resulted from the Black Death did not substantially alter the basic nature of the family.]]> 364 Barbara A. Hanawalt 0195045645 Victoria 4 4.07 1986 The Ties That Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England
author: Barbara A. Hanawalt
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1986
rating: 4
read at: 2010/03/12
date added: 2010/03/12
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, history-england, history-medieval, non-fiction, history-gender
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Before Columbus: Exploration and Colonization from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1229-1492 (The Middle Ages Series)]]> 563129


A brief introduction analyzes the problems that face students and historians. Then, concentrating on medieval Spanish colonial development, but carefully linking that development to the wider European process of expansion, the author surveys the great areas of expansion in the Western Mediterranean: the island conquests of the House of Barcelona; the first Atlantic Empire in Andalusia, its environs, Valencia, and Murcia; the Genoese Mediterranean; and the North African coast.

In the last four chapters, Fernandez-Armesto sketches the course and characteristics of early European expansion of the Atlantic before Columbus and highlights the impact of geography and anthropology on the discovery of the Atlantic space. The emphasis throughout is on tracing the elements of continuity and discontinuity between Mediterranean and Atlantic worlds and studying how colonial societies originate and behave.]]> 294 Felipe Fernández-Armesto 0812214129 Victoria 3 3.83 1987 Before Columbus: Exploration and Colonization from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1229-1492 (The Middle Ages Series)
author: Felipe Fernández-Armesto
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1987
rating: 3
read at: 2010/03/11
date added: 2010/03/10
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, history-europe, history-medieval, history-spain
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Theater of Acculturation: The Roman Ghetto in the Sixteenth Century]]> 1569015
Jews had been residents of Rome since before the days of Julius Caesar, but the 16th century brought great challenges to their identity and survival in the form of Ghettoization. Intended to expedite conversion and cultural dissolution, the Ghetto in fact had an opposite effect. The Jews of Rome developed a subculture, or microculture, that ensured continuity. In particular, they developed a remarkably effective legal network of rabbinic notaries, who drew public documents such as contracts, took testimony, and arranged for disputes to go to arbitration. The ability to settle disputes relating to marriage, divorce, inheritance, and other internal matters gave Jews the illusion that they, rather than the papal vicar, were running their own affairs.

Stow applies his concept of “social theater� to illuminate the role-playing that Jews adopted as a means of survival within the dominant Christian environment. He also touches briefly on Jewish culture in post-Emancipation Rome, elsewhere in Europe, and in America, and points the way toward a comparison with the acculturational strategies of other minorities, especially African Americans.]]> Kenneth R. Stow 0295980222 Victoria 3 4.00 2000 Theater of Acculturation: The Roman Ghetto in the Sixteenth Century
author: Kenneth R. Stow
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at: 2009/04/01
date added: 2010/03/10
shelves: 2009, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-italy, history-jewish
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Medieval Universities: Their Development and Organization]]> 3946076 0 Alan B. Cobban 0064712486 Victoria 4 3.83 1975 The Medieval Universities: Their Development and Organization
author: Alan B. Cobban
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1975
rating: 4
read at: 2010/03/04
date added: 2010/03/09
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, non-fiction, history-medieval, history-europe
review:
Really fascinating book, but so very '70s. Looking for the roots of modern student movements in the middle ages, and concludes that modern student autonomy is at an ebb compared to that of the middle ages. Not precisely presentist, but Cobban is certainly sending nudges and winks to his contemporaries, which detracts from the importance of the synthesis undertaken.
]]> <![CDATA[Pilgrimage: An Image of Mediaeval Religion]]> 3306427 390 Jonathan Sumption 0874716772 Victoria 1 3.25 1975 Pilgrimage: An Image of Mediaeval Religion
author: Jonathan Sumption
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.25
book published: 1975
rating: 1
read at: 2010/03/09
date added: 2010/03/09
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, non-fiction, history-europe, history-medieval
review:
Why am I even reading this book? It is quite possibly one of the worst published works of history I have ever read. Uses sources uncritically and from disparate regions and disparate times to prove a single point; is more interested in creating a static picture of medieval religion than in actually conveying a dynamic culture from which pilgrimage (or indeed any other religious practice) might have sprung; displays almost no sensitivity to theology, ecclesiology, social practice or popular devotion, leading to a wholly inadequate and indeed inaccurate "image" of medieval religion as it was actually lived. Could have benefited from a basic grounding in medieval chronology.
]]> <![CDATA[Saints and Society: The Two Worlds of Western Christendom, 1000-1700]]> 1622569 321 Donald Weinstein 0226890562 Victoria 3
Moreover, as others have noted, there is a serious disconnect between social and religious history in this text, such that for all Weinstein and Bell want to illuminate aspects of medieval/early modern society through analysis of these hagiographical texts, most texts are employed either to explain social phenomena or to demonstrate aspects of pre-modern piety -- but not both. As such, it is not entirely clear how popular piety and devotion actually slotted into the daily life of the pre-modern individual.]]> 3.55 1982 Saints and Society: The Two Worlds of Western Christendom, 1000-1700
author: Donald Weinstein
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.55
book published: 1982
rating: 3
read at: 2010/03/09
date added: 2010/03/08
shelves: comps-medieval, 2010, history, non-fiction, history-europe, history-medieval
review:
Fascinating statistical analysis, but questionable use of sources. For all that these ~900 saints are supposed to reveal patterns of piety and devotion as they varied across space and time, the sample is limited to those cults that were ecclesiastically approved or sanctioned and therefore ignores local popular cults that never achieved great following. While the inclusion of such cults may not have changed their conclusions, it would be worthwhile to examine the variations (if any) between ecclesiastically-approved saints and those who were propped up only by local devotion.

Moreover, as others have noted, there is a serious disconnect between social and religious history in this text, such that for all Weinstein and Bell want to illuminate aspects of medieval/early modern society through analysis of these hagiographical texts, most texts are employed either to explain social phenomena or to demonstrate aspects of pre-modern piety -- but not both. As such, it is not entirely clear how popular piety and devotion actually slotted into the daily life of the pre-modern individual.
]]> <![CDATA[Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy]]> 853873
After the ghetto was imposed in Venice, Rome, and other Italian cities, Jewish settlement became more concentrated. Bonfil claims that the ghetto experience did more to intensify Jewish self-perception in early modern Europe than the supposed acculturation of the Renaissance. He shows how, paradoxically, ghetto living opened and transformed Jewish culture, hastening secularization and modernization.

Bonfil's detailed picture reveals in the Italian Jews a sensitivity and self-awareness that took into account every aspect of the larger society. His inside view of a culture flourishing under stress enables us to understand how identity is perceived through constant interplay―on whatever terms―with the Other.]]> 336 Robert Bonfil 0520073509 Victoria 2 3.67 1994 Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy
author: Robert Bonfil
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1994
rating: 2
read at: 2009/03/22
date added: 2010/03/07
shelves: 2009, history, non-fiction, comps-eme, 2010, history-early-modern, history-italy, history-jewish
review:
Thoroughly unconvincing. Slipshod use of sources and pretty limp grasp of the Christian context into which the Jewish experience fits.
]]> <![CDATA[Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture]]> 541201 452 Miri Rubin 0521438055 Victoria 4 3.61 1991 Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture
author: Miri Rubin
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.61
book published: 1991
rating: 4
read at: 2010/03/07
date added: 2010/03/07
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, non-fiction, history-medieval, history-europe
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century (MART: The Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching)]]> 824834 Robert Louis Benson 0802068502 Victoria 4 3.75 1982 Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century (MART: The Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching)
author: Robert Louis Benson
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2010/03/06
date added: 2010/03/07
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, non-fiction, history, history-europe, history-medieval
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, 950 - 1350]]> 933346 432 Robert Bartlett 0691037809 Victoria 3 3.98 1993 The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, 950 - 1350
author: Robert Bartlett
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1993
rating: 3
read at: 2010/03/05
date added: 2010/03/05
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, non-fiction, history-europe, history-medieval
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Implications of Literacy: Written Language & Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh & Twelfth Centuries]]> 2454262
Medieval and early modern literacy, Brian Stock argues, did not simply supersede oral discourse but created a new type of interdependence between the oral and the written. If, on the surface, medieval culture was largely oral, texts nonetheless emerged as a reference system both for everyday activities and for giving shape to larger vehicles of interpretation. Even when texts were not actually present, people often acted and behaved as if they were.

The book uses methods derived from anthropology, from literary theory, and from historical research, and is divided into five chapters. The first treats the growth and shape of medieval literacy itself. Theo other four look afresh at some of the period's major issues--heresy, reform, the Eucharistic controversy, the thought of Anselm, Abelard, and St. Bernard, together with the interpretation of contemporary experience--in the light of literacy's development. The study concludes that written language was the chief integrating instrument for diverse cultural achievements.]]> 616 Brian Stock 0691102279 Victoria 2 3.68 1983 The Implications of Literacy: Written Language & Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh & Twelfth Centuries
author: Brian Stock
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1983
rating: 2
read at: 2010/03/04
date added: 2010/03/04
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, non-fiction, history-europe, history-medieval
review:
The "rebirth" of literacy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries changed the way people interacted with ideas -- shift from an oral culture to a textual culture, in which knowledge was not only recorded in writing but writing was in itself a form of knowledge. Created a new distinction between literate and illiterate peoples, which in turn created a divide between literate elite culture and illiterate popular culture (which I believe to be a false dichotomy, draws an artificial barrier where none existed in practice). Intensely boring, and not as convincing as Carruthers.
]]> <![CDATA[Jews and Blacks in the Early Modern World]]> 2205787 560 Jonathan Schorsch 0521820219 Victoria 4 4.20 2004 Jews and Blacks in the Early Modern World
author: Jonathan Schorsch
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2010/03/03
date added: 2010/03/03
shelves: 2010, comps-eme, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-jewish, history-europe
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dangerous Women: Warriors, Grannies, and Geishas of the Ming]]> 1676568 184 Victoria B. Cass 0847693953 Victoria 3 3.34 1999 Dangerous Women: Warriors, Grannies, and Geishas of the Ming
author: Victoria B. Cass
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.34
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at: 2010/02/28
date added: 2010/02/28
shelves: 2010, comps-worldhistory, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-china, history-gender
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe (New Approaches to European History, Series Number 24)]]> 1003366 273 Daniel Goffman 0521459087 Victoria 3 3.77 1998 The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe (New Approaches to European History, Series Number 24)
author: Daniel Goffman
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1998
rating: 3
read at: 2010/02/23
date added: 2010/02/23
shelves: 2010, comps-eme, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-middle-east
review:
Not terrible, but raises more questions than it answers. Argues that the Ottoman Empire played a significant role in the development of Europe, that it was not marginalized, that Orientalism per se did not exist in the 16th and 17th centuries, that what has been characterized as "decline" (which teleologically points to the end of the Empire in the 20th century) actually only points to crisis and development in another direction than Europe followed, and that it was, after all, far more European than historians have credited. Hugely problematic for not actually defining what is meant by "Europe" or "European", and for utterly downplaying differences between Islamic and Christian cultures, and their role in the development of their respective societies. Solid as a textbook (as it is what it is).
]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, Series Number 10)]]> 356645 407 Mary Carruthers 0521429730 Victoria 4 4.22 1990 The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, Series Number 10)
author: Mary Carruthers
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at: 2010/02/23
date added: 2010/02/23
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, non-fiction, history-medieval, history-europe
review:
The details made my brain hurt, but argues that medieval intellectual culture remained a memorial one, even with increased literacy. Memory and memorization held a particular social and cultural meaning for medieval people -- authoritative knowledge was held in memory, not in texts, and the rise in literacy over the course of the middle ages was only slow to erode this tradition.
]]> <![CDATA[The Consumption of Justice: Emotions, Publicity, and Legal Culture in Marseille, 1264-1423]]> 1061437
Daniel Lord Smail shows that the courts were quickly adopted as a public stage on which litigants could take revenge on their enemies. Even as the new legal system served the interest of royal or communal authority, it also provided the consumers of justice with a way to broadcast their hatreds and social sanctions to a wider audience and negotiate their own community standing in the process. The emotions that had driven bloodfeuds and other forms of customary vengeance thus never went away, and instead were fully incorporated into the new procedures.]]> 296 Daniel Lord Smail 0801441056 Victoria 5
It is, in fact, genius.]]> 4.00 2003 The Consumption of Justice: Emotions, Publicity, and Legal Culture in Marseille, 1264-1423
author: Daniel Lord Smail
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2010/02/23
date added: 2010/02/22
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, non-fiction, history-france, history-medieval
review:
I actually don't know what to say about this book other than that it made me want to curl up inside Dan Smail's brain and live there forever. Examines the demand-side of the economy of justice in the later middle ages, arguing that the state managed to establish a monopoly on the exercise of violence only through the active collaboration of its subjects, and not through the repressive cooptation of private justice.

It is, in fact, genius.
]]> <![CDATA[In and out of the Ghetto: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany (Publications of the German Historical Institute)]]> 2242517 356 R. Po-chia Hsia 0521470641 Victoria 3 3.33 1995 In and out of the Ghetto: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany (Publications of the German Historical Institute)
author: R. Po-chia Hsia
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.33
book published: 1995
rating: 3
read at: 2010/02/18
date added: 2010/02/18
shelves: 2010, comps-eme, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-germany, history-jewish
review:
Some hits, some misses, as with any collection of this kind. Mostly interesting for its discussion of how the history of Jewish-Christian relations in Germany has been informed by the Holocaust, but offers few enough suggestions for how not to read back an inescapable teleology leading to that moment without giving the pre-modern history of such relations too optimistic a spin.
]]> <![CDATA[Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World (Carpenter Lectures)]]> 2973642
In a series of innovative readings of travel narratives, judicial documents, and official reports, Stephen Greenblatt shows that the experience of the marvelous, central to both art and philosophy, was cunningly yoked by Columbus and others to the service of colonial appropriation. He argues that the traditional symbolic actions and legal rituals through which European sovereignty was asserted were strained to the breaking point by the unprecedented nature of the discovery of the New World. But the book also shows that the experience of the marvelous is not necessarily an agent of in writers as different as Herodotus, Jean de Léry, and Montaigne—and notably in Mandeville's Travels, the most popular travel book of the Middle Ages—wonder is a sign of a remarkably tolerant recognition of cultural difference.

Marvelous Possession is not only a collection of the odd and exotic through which Stephen Greenblatt powerfully conveys a sense of the marvelous, but also a highly original extension of his thinking on a subject that has occupied him throughout his career. The book reaches back to the ancient Greeks and forward to the present to ask how it is possible, in a time of disorientation, hatred of the other, and possessiveness, to keep the capacity for wonder from being poisoned?

"A marvellous book. It is also a compelling and a powerful one. Nothing so original has ever been written on European responses to 'The wonder of the New World.'"—Anthony Pagden, Times Literary Supplement

"By far the most intellectually gripping and penetrating discussion of the relationship between intruders and natives is provided by Stephen Greenblatt's Marvelous Possessions ."—Simon Schama, The New Republic

"For the most engaging and illuminating perspective of all, read Marvelous Possessions ."—Laura Shapiro, Newsweek]]> 216 Stephen Greenblatt 0226306518 Victoria 3 3.00 1991 Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World (Carpenter Lectures)
author: Stephen Greenblatt
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1991
rating: 3
read at: 2010/02/17
date added: 2010/02/17
shelves: 2010, comps-eme, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-europe
review:
Argues that European interaction with the New World, in the late 15th and 16th centuries, was informed largely by their wonderment at the peoples and things that they discovered there. Builds the case on, perhaps, too slender a definition of "wonder", ascribing cultural meaning to it that was not necessarily a shared European one.
]]> <![CDATA[In the Wake of Columbus: The Impact of The New World on Europe, 1492 - 1650]]> 2560530 152 Roger Schlesinger 0882952498 Victoria 2 dinde is a bastardization of coq d'Inde, and that historians make poor fortune tellers because apparently stuff happens that can't be predicted. OH MY GOD WHAT IS MY LIFE AND WHY DO I HAVE TO READ SUCH FACILE STUPID SHIT.

Also, the "discovery" of America affected Europe just as much as it affected America. Really! What about the rest of the world?

I threw this book against the wall when I was done with it.]]> 3.09 1996 In the Wake of Columbus: The Impact of The New World on Europe, 1492 - 1650
author: Roger Schlesinger
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.09
book published: 1996
rating: 2
read at: 2010/02/16
date added: 2010/02/16
shelves: 2010, comps-eme, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-europe
review:
I learned two things from this book: that the French word dinde is a bastardization of coq d'Inde, and that historians make poor fortune tellers because apparently stuff happens that can't be predicted. OH MY GOD WHAT IS MY LIFE AND WHY DO I HAVE TO READ SUCH FACILE STUPID SHIT.

Also, the "discovery" of America affected Europe just as much as it affected America. Really! What about the rest of the world?

I threw this book against the wall when I was done with it.
]]> <![CDATA[Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350]]> 1308437 460 Janet L. Abu-Lughod 0195058860 Victoria 5 are cultural differences between Catholicism and Protestantism that account for the failure of Spain and Portugal to reap fully the benefits of the new world -- fuck you, Max Weber), but really very thought-provoking.]]> 4.33 1989 Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350
author: Janet L. Abu-Lughod
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1989
rating: 5
read at: 2010/02/12
date added: 2010/02/12
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, non-fiction, history-medieval
review:
Argues that European dominance of the modern world system (dated to the 16th century) was not the result of any particular qualities inherent in European civilization. Rather, it developed out of a preexisting world system that flourished in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, over which Europeans were able to claim dominance as a result of decline in other economic zones (i.e. the Middle East and Asia). A really fascinating look at the medieval economy, incorporating regional case studies with a global macrohistory. Some points are highly problematic (such as her assertion that there are no cultural differences between Christianity, Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism or Islam that could account for European predominance after 1500, but that there are cultural differences between Catholicism and Protestantism that account for the failure of Spain and Portugal to reap fully the benefits of the new world -- fuck you, Max Weber), but really very thought-provoking.
]]> <![CDATA[The Reformation of Ritual: An Interpretation of Early Modern Germany (Christianity and Society in the Modern World)]]> 4657612 Employing anthropological insights, and drawing on extensive archival research, Susan Karant-Nunn outlines the significance of the ceremonial changes. This comprehensive study includes an examination of all major rites of passage: birth, baptism, confirmation, engagement, marriage, the churching of women after childbirth, penance, the Eucharist, and dying. The author argues that the changes in ritual made over the course of the century reflect more than theological shifts; ritual was a means of imposing discipline and of making the divine more or less accessible. Church and state cooperated in using ritual as one means of gaining control of the populace.]]> 296 Susan C. Karant-Nunn 0415113377 Victoria 4 4.00 1997 The Reformation of Ritual: An Interpretation of Early Modern Germany (Christianity and Society in the Modern World)
author: Susan C. Karant-Nunn
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2010/02/11
date added: 2010/02/11
shelves: comps-eme, 2010, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-germany
review:
Opens up the discussion of confessionalization to include the curious non-paradox of Protestant ritual, and how these were modified (or not) as Protestant theology developed over the course of the sixteenth century. Argues that there was an official, confessionalizing aim to the institutionalization of such rituals as baptism, marriage, churching, and funerals (or burial), but also an unofficial purpose embedded in the same. Would have been interesting to bring in Catholic areas as well, to see how much the official modification of such rituals was due to Protestant theology and how much of it did, in fact, cross confessional boundaries.
]]> <![CDATA[Two Churches: England and Italy in the Thirteenth Century]]> 885905 Robert Brentano 0520060989 Victoria 2 3.42 1988 Two Churches: England and Italy in the Thirteenth Century
author: Robert Brentano
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.42
book published: 1988
rating: 2
read at: 2010/02/09
date added: 2010/02/09
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, non-fiction, history, history-england, history-italy, history-medieval
review:
Possibly one of the most poorly written works of history ever. Thoroughly unreadable prose, and an argument for the administrative irrelevance of the Italian episcopacy (versus the administrative coherence of the English episcopacy) that is based almost entirely on silence in the sources rather than actual sources.
]]> <![CDATA[Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (The Penguin History of the Church, #2)]]> 271116 376 Richard William Southern 0140137556 Victoria 4 3.84 1970 Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (The Penguin History of the Church, #2)
author: Richard William Southern
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1970
rating: 4
read at: 2010/02/08
date added: 2010/02/08
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, non-fiction, history-medieval, history-europe
review:
A book that all my undergrads ought to read, if only to confront the truth that the medieval church was not, in fact, a police state. Argues that the medieval "church" referred to the ecclesiastical hierarchy rather than a community of believers, and functions as a rough sketch of the various parts of that hierarchy. Argues, however, that that hierarchy was not a coherent, cohesive one, but disparate in its design, functions, and general apparatus.
]]> <![CDATA[The Papacy, 1073 1198: Continuity and Innovation]]> 7694752 572 I.S. Robinson 0521264987 Victoria 3 3.67 1990 The Papacy, 1073 1198: Continuity and Innovation
author: I.S. Robinson
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1990
rating: 3
read at: 2010/02/07
date added: 2010/02/07
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, non-fiction, history-italy, history-medieval
review:
Dry institutional history of the medieval papacy. Argues that it was during this period that the papacy ceased to concern itself solely with its dimensions as the bishopric of Rome, and began actively to lay claim to its so-called inheritance as the centre of Christendom. The popes of this period began to articulate the forms of administration that would last into the modern era.
]]> <![CDATA[The Church in Italy in the Fifteenth Century: The Birkbeck Lectures 1971]]> 1156392 Denys Hay 0521521912 Victoria 3 3.00 1977 The Church in Italy in the Fifteenth Century: The Birkbeck Lectures 1971
author: Denys Hay
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1977
rating: 3
read at: 2008/06/01
date added: 2010/02/07
shelves: 2008, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-italy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Luther: Man Between God and the Devil]]> 647611 “A brilliant account of Luther’s evolution as a man, a thinker, and a Christian ... Every person interested in Christianity should put this on his or her reading list.”—Lawrence Cunningham, Commonweal
“This is the biography of Luther for our time by the world’s foremost authority.”—Steven Ozment, Harvard University
“If the world is to gain from Luther it must turn to the real Luther—furious, violent, foul-mouthed, passionately concerned. Him it will find in Oberman’s book, a labour of love.”—G. R. Elton, Journal of Ecclesiastical History]]> 400 Heiko A. Oberman 0300103131 Victoria 3 Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History thesis, placing Luther in his proper social historical context. Argues that he was a product of his time, and that his theology did not develop from the inside of the toilet, but rather from active engagement with the religious community in which he was born, raised and educated, and from the monastic context to which he had dedicated his life.]]> 4.11 1981 Luther: Man Between God and the Devil
author: Heiko A. Oberman
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1981
rating: 3
read at: 2010/02/04
date added: 2010/02/04
shelves: 2010, comps-eme, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-germany
review:
Typical "great man" history, which makes Luther the star of the Reformation. Not a fan. Revises the Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History thesis, placing Luther in his proper social historical context. Argues that he was a product of his time, and that his theology did not develop from the inside of the toilet, but rather from active engagement with the religious community in which he was born, raised and educated, and from the monastic context to which he had dedicated his life.
]]> <![CDATA[Convents and the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice (Women in Culture and Society)]]> 3342468
Sperling explains how women were not allowed to marry beneath their social status while men could, especially if their brides were wealthy. Faced with a shortage of suitable partners, patrician women were forced to offer themselves as "a gift not only to God, but to their fatherland," as Patriarch Giovanni Tiepolo told the Senate of Venice in 1619. Noting the declining birth rate among patrician women, Sperling explores the paradox of a marriage system that preserved the nobility at the price of its physical extinction. And on a more individual level, she tells the fascinating stories of these women. Some became scholars or advocates of women's rights, some took lovers, and others escaped only to survive as servants, prostitutes, or thieves.]]> 434 Jutta Gisela Sperling 0226769356 Victoria 4 4.00 2000 Convents and the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice (Women in Culture and Society)
author: Jutta Gisela Sperling
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2010/02/02
date added: 2010/02/02
shelves: 2010, comps-eme, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-italy, history-gender
review:
Really fascinating book about Santa Maria delle Vergini. Argues that aristocratic convents were the primary sites for the battles waged between Venetian authorities and the post-Tridentine church for control of religious life in general, and of women's religious experience in particular. The first chapter is by far the most interesting, arguing that the exceptionally high rate of forced monachization among aristocratic women was not entirely due to the impracticability of the extortionate dowry market (as has been previously argued) but was rather was a form of potlatch, in which women were forced into convents in recognition of their exceptionally high value as pieces of aristocratic culture for which there could be no acceptable return. The practice of forced monachization was thus a form of conspicuous wastefulness, where the commodity being wasted was female reproductive capacity, with the result that the so-called gift-giver increased in social standing because of such flagrant wastefulness.
]]> <![CDATA[Beneath the Cross: Catholics and Huguenots in Sixteenth-Century Paris]]> 1642126 massacres. Drawing on a wide array of published and unpublished sources, Beneath the Cross is the most comprehensive social history to date of these religious conflicts.]]> 288 Barbara B. Diefendorf 0195070135 Victoria 3 3.73 1991 Beneath the Cross: Catholics and Huguenots in Sixteenth-Century Paris
author: Barbara B. Diefendorf
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1991
rating: 3
read at: 2010/02/02
date added: 2010/02/02
shelves: 2010, comps-eme, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-france
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Christ's Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism]]> 978518 624 Philip Benedict 0300088124 Victoria 3 3.87 2002 Christ's Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism
author: Philip Benedict
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at: 2010/02/01
date added: 2010/02/01
shelves: 2010, comps-eme, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-europe
review:
Another in the confessionalization vein, but does argue for differentiation between the national Reformed churches, based on local politics, socioeconomics and culture, each of which contributed to the divergent paths in the development of the various Reformed tradition. Points to recommend it: highly critical of the Weber thesis. Points against: unsatisfactory discussion of the internal processes of conversion and confessionalization as they affected the individual.
]]> The Birth of Purgatory 884200 440 Jacques Le Goff 0226470830 Victoria 3 4.03 1981 The Birth of Purgatory
author: Jacques Le Goff
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1981
rating: 3
read at: 2010/01/31
date added: 2010/01/31
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, non-fiction, history-medieval
review:
Examines the development of the idea of Purgatory as a distinct place with a distinct purpose. Examines theological treatises, sermons, poetry (esp. Dante), etc. to trace the gradual articulation of the ideology of Purgatory over the course of the latter half of the twelfth century and into the early fourteenth, by which time Le Goff concludes that it had more or less coalesced into its recognisably "modern form". Argues that by the early fourteenth century, Purgatory had morphed into a doctrine that offered hope for salvation, away from its initial conception as a tool for inflicting damnation.
]]> <![CDATA[The Reformation in Historical Thought]]> 4520951 456 A.G. Dickens 0674753119 Victoria 2 2.00 1985 The Reformation in Historical Thought
author: A.G. Dickens
name: Victoria
average rating: 2.00
book published: 1985
rating: 2
read at: 2009/09/12
date added: 2010/01/30
shelves: 2009, comps-eme, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-historiography
review:
Another one of those books that legit made me wish for death. And beer.
]]> <![CDATA[God in La Mancha: Religious Reform and the People of Cuenca, 1500--1650 (The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science)]]> 4725091 328 Sara T. Nalle 0801843847 Victoria 4 first time in history.]]> 3.00 1992 God in La Mancha: Religious Reform and the People of Cuenca, 1500--1650 (The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science)
author: Sara T. Nalle
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2010/01/29
date added: 2010/01/29
shelves: 2010, comps-eme, history, non-fiction, history-spain, history-early-modern
review:
Typical of the confessionalization model: describes the iniquities and ignorance of the church and laity in the pre-reform era, followed by the anxieties of the Council of Trent and Counter Reformation, followed by harsh confessionalization and centralization as instituted by the Inquisition and Tridentine reformers in Cuenca. Really interesting case study, but I continue to be leery of any work that so strongly emphasizes the un-Christian pre-reformation and argues that the Counter Reformation turned the Spanish (or the French, or Italian, or whatever) laity and lower clergy into proper practicing Catholics for the first time in history.
]]> <![CDATA[The French Wars of Religion, 1562-1629 (New Approaches to European History)]]> 321989 260 Mack P. Holt 0521547504 Victoria 3 3.94 1995 The French Wars of Religion, 1562-1629 (New Approaches to European History)
author: Mack P. Holt
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1995
rating: 3
read at: 2010/01/27
date added: 2010/01/27
shelves: 2010, comps-eme, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-france
review:
Broadly revisionist work that overtly attempts to put the religion back in the history of the wars of religion. Works with the kind of Bossy/Duffy-esque definition of religion as a body of believers rather than a body of doctrine.
]]> <![CDATA[The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580]]> 418937 From reviews of the first edition:
“A magnificent scholarly achievement [and] a compelling read.”—Patricia Morrison, Financial Times
“Deeply imaginative, movingly written, and splendidly illustrated. . . . Duffy’s analysis . . . carries conviction.”—Maurice Keen, New York Review of Books
“This book will afford enjoyment and enlightenment to layman and specialist alike.”—Peter Heath, Times Literary Supplement
“[An] astonishing and magnificent piece of work.”—Edward T. Oakes, Commonweal]]> 700 Eamon Duffy 0300108281 Victoria 4 4.26 1992 The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580
author: Eamon Duffy
name: Victoria
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2010/01/26
date added: 2010/01/26
shelves: 2010, comps-eme, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-england, history-medieval
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Cultures of Power: Lordship, Status, and Process in Twelfth-Century Europe (The Middle Ages Series)]]> 383806 400 Thomas N. Bisson 0812215559 Victoria 3 3.60 1995 Cultures of Power: Lordship, Status, and Process in Twelfth-Century Europe (The Middle Ages Series)
author: Thomas N. Bisson
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1995
rating: 3
read at: 2010/01/25
date added: 2010/01/25
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, non-fiction, history-europe, history-medieval
review:
Mostly of interest for Stephen Jaeger's article on courtliness and social change, which treats quite thoughtfully the social functions of polemic versus idealist literature, and how historians might use them to find a middle way into a balanced history of knightly and/or courtly culture in the high middle ages. Also interesting was Stephen White's article on the ordeal, and how it was deployed in legal proceedings not just as a matter of course, but because it functioned as leverage for either side of a dispute to force the issue. Other articles on social mobility and the meaning of feudal relations were less compelling.
]]> <![CDATA[Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy]]> 861701 400 Lauro Martines 0801836433 Victoria 3 3.48 1979 Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy
author: Lauro Martines
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.48
book published: 1979
rating: 3
read at: 2010/01/24
date added: 2010/01/24
shelves: comps-medieval, 2010, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-medieval, history-italy
review:
I was with it right up until the transition into the Renaissance proper, at which point my own interpretation of circumstances diverges wildly. Mostly interesting for the generalities of the rise of the medieval communes and the eventual transition into Renaissance states, such as they were.
]]> <![CDATA[Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power in the Middle Ages]]> 1796359 632 John W. Baldwin 0520073916 Victoria 3 3.69 1986 Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power in the Middle Ages
author: John W. Baldwin
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1986
rating: 3
read at: 2010/01/22
date added: 2010/01/22
shelves: 2010, comps-medieval, history, non-fiction, history-france, history-medieval
review:
Gun to my head: my least favourite subfield of history is political history, and my least favourite regional history is French. This book combines both of these elements, and left me vehemently ruing the day I agreed to put this on my list. That being said, not terrible. Offers the explanation that Philip's governmental reforms were instrumental in the rise and consolidation of the French monarchy in the high Middle Ages. Yawn.
]]> <![CDATA[Reformation Thought: An Introduction]]> 53952 329 Alister E. McGrath 0631215212 Victoria 2 Elizabeth Eisenstein on the role of print in the propagation of the Reformation and, in a particularly poorly written and poorly researched chapter, in favour of Max Weber on the role of Protestantism in the rise of modern capitalism.

Pro-tips for the future: Trecento, Quattrocento, Cinquecento, etc. often omit the accent (p. 39) because there is, in fact, no accent on the word cento at all. Also, it doesn't matter if the reformers at Trent misunderstood what Luther meant by justification (p. 129), because the Lutheran understanding of justification is still inconsistent with the decision reached at Trent. Moreover, Benjamin Franklin not only did not live in the seventeenth century, but he also was not a Calvinist (p. 269). And Max Weber was wrong.]]> 3.95 1941 Reformation Thought: An Introduction
author: Alister E. McGrath
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1941
rating: 2
read at: 2010/01/21
date added: 2010/01/21
shelves: comps-eme, history, non-fiction, 2010, history-early-modern, history-europe
review:
Fairly helpful overview of Reformation theologies -- Lutheran, Zwinglian, Calvinist, and to a certain extent Radical and Catholic. Very textbooky, clearly written for a completely secular and religiously ignorant audience (in a tone that is actually insulting to the areligious) and very biased toward the Protestant side of the Reformation. Contains no real argument, except that it sides in favour of Elizabeth Eisenstein on the role of print in the propagation of the Reformation and, in a particularly poorly written and poorly researched chapter, in favour of Max Weber on the role of Protestantism in the rise of modern capitalism.

Pro-tips for the future: Trecento, Quattrocento, Cinquecento, etc. often omit the accent (p. 39) because there is, in fact, no accent on the word cento at all. Also, it doesn't matter if the reformers at Trent misunderstood what Luther meant by justification (p. 129), because the Lutheran understanding of justification is still inconsistent with the decision reached at Trent. Moreover, Benjamin Franklin not only did not live in the seventeenth century, but he also was not a Calvinist (p. 269). And Max Weber was wrong.
]]> <![CDATA[The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 (Making of the Modern World)]]> 1133879 world into war.
This exciting new book by Julian Jackson, a leading historian of twentieth-century France, charts the breathtakingly rapid events that led to the defeat and surrender of one of the greatest bastions of the Western Allies. Using eyewitness accounts, memoirs, and diaries to bring the story to
life, Jackson not only recreates the intense atmosphere of the six weeks in May and June leading up to the establishment of the Vichy regime, but he also unravels the historical evidence to produce a fresh answer to the perennial question--was the fall of France inevitable. Jackson's vivid
narrative explores the errors of France's military leaders, her inability to create stronger alliances, the political infighting, the lack of morale, even the decadence of the inter-war years. He debunks the "vast superiority" of the German army, revealing that the more experienced French troops did
well in battle against the Germans. Perhaps more than anything else, the cause of the defeat was the failure of the French to pinpoint where the main thrust of the German army would come, a failure that led them to put their best soldiers up against a feint, while their worst troops faced the heart
of the German war machine.
An engaging and authoritative narrative, The Fall of France illuminates six weeks that changed the course of twentieth-century history.]]> 274 Julian T. Jackson 019280300X Victoria 4 3.90 2003 The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 (Making of the Modern World)
author: Julian T. Jackson
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2005/01/01
date added: 2010/01/21
shelves: non-fiction, history, 2005, history-20th-century, history-france
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Venice's Hidden Enemies: Italian Heretics in a Renaissance City]]> 1207626 304 John Jeffries Martin 0801878772 Victoria 3 3.77 1993 Venice's Hidden Enemies: Italian Heretics in a Renaissance City
author: John Jeffries Martin
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1993
rating: 3
read at: 2010/01/20
date added: 2010/01/20
shelves: 2008, non-fiction, history, comps-eme, 2010, history-early-modern, history-italy
review:
Re-read January 20, 2010. Just not as good as I remember it being. Assumes too much about the ideas of evangelicals and misleadingly inflates the numbers of heretics in the city. Seems to buy too much into Venetian rhetoric about such heretics while ignoring the fact that 676 people (p. 95) accused of evangelical heresy is just not that many and cannot be extrapolated to be that many in such a large population. Accounts well for the societal reasons that individuals might be attracted to the ideas that evangelism brought, but places too much emphasis on the centralizing Counter-Reformation state to explain why such ideas were eventually discarded. Might there not be a societal explanation for the rejection of evangelical ideas, when they were not only dangerous but also alienating in terms of the social relations it offered in a predominantly Catholic society?
]]> <![CDATA[The Disciplinary Revolution: Calvinism and the Rise of the State in Early Modern Europe]]> 763843 266 Philip S. Gorski 0226304841 Victoria 4 3.89 2014 The Disciplinary Revolution: Calvinism and the Rise of the State in Early Modern Europe
author: Philip S. Gorski
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2009/11/09
date added: 2010/01/20
shelves: 2009, comps-eme, history, non-fiction, history-early-modern, history-germany, history-netherlands
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion]]> 438802 252 Andrew Pettegree 0521602645 Victoria 4 3.57 2005 Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion
author: Andrew Pettegree
name: Victoria
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2008/02/01
date added: 2010/01/20
shelves: 2008, non-fiction, history, comps-eme, 2010, history-early-modern, history-england, history-germany, history-europe
review:
Re-read January 20, 2010. Argues that print culture was actually only part of the wider "culture of persuasion" that was deployed in selling the Reformation in the first fifty years after Luther, when a deep engagement with the faith was most important. In addition to printed materials, reformers also used preaching and sermons, singing of psalms, songs and ballads, performance of reformed mystery plays, woodcuts and other art forms to spread the message of the Reformation and new ideas about justification. All of this contributed to the creation of a culture in which the decision to convert was softened of its initial shock and danger. The last two chapters discuss the strategies employed by Protestant states to ensure among subjects a high degree of understanding of and engagement with the Protestant faith. Discuss catechism and the redirection of the "culture of persuasion" into state-building enterprises, which were increasingly text-dependent, and which created a "culture of belonging". Somewhat revisionist in its dating of the era of confessionalization, which according to Pettegree could not have started until after 1580.
]]>