Mai 26, 2016, 2:57 p.m.,
Fowden, G.,
Allgemein.
A strand in current scholarship examines early Islam and the Caliphate against a late antique backdrop of Sasanid–Roman tension, dogmatic strife in the Church, and the maturation of rabbinic Judaism. Gibbon long ago insisted that there had been more than one road out of Antiquity, leading not just to the formation of Latin Christendom— the Papacy, German Empire and Italian Renaissance—but also to Greek Christendom and the rise of Islam. Yet this aspect of Decline and Fall remains unappreciated, especially in John Pocock’s monumental Barbarism and Religion. The present article traces the origins of Gibbon’s eastward turn in his reading of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Arabists, historians and travellers, and in his decision to follow East Roman history down to 1453. Not only Voltaire but also the Universal History (London, 1736–66) encouraged Gibbon to look beyond Europe and its Christian narrative, while attitudes to Islam had softened in the decades around 1700 as a consequence of greater familiarity with its literature and the weakening of theological prejudice. Gibbon achieved a powerful, empathetic portrait of Muhammad as a political leader as well as a prophet. His account of the Muslim empires from their Medinan origins to the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople offers revealing comparisons with ancient Iran and Rome. Although his Classical Greek and Roman criterion of cultural and historical value forced him to conclude that Islam too was, in the end, tyranny and imposture, nevertheless the weight that Gibbon accorded to the Muslim world anticipates the more inclusive methods of global historians in our day.
Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/131/549/261?rss=1
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Mai 26, 2016, 2:57 p.m.,
Sharpe, J. A., Dickinson, J. R.,
Allgemein.
It is now generally accepted that there was a fall in the number of homicide prosecutions in early modern England, perhaps signifying broader shifts in violent behaviour. So far, however, apart from J.S. Cockburn’s 1991 study of long-term developments in homicide prosecutions in Kent, there has been little in-depth analysis of this transition. This article provides a detailed study of homicide prosecutions in Cheshire over the seventeenth century, focusing on the records of the county’s Court of Great Sessions, the local equivalent of the assizes. Cheshire is the only northern county where the surviving records permit this type of analysis over the seventeenth century, and hence constitutes an important point of comparison with research completed on homicide in the south during the early modern period. Cheshire homicide cases, and especially cases categorised as manslaughter, were running at a much higher level in the first half of the century, with a peak in the 1620s. Throughout the century, homicide in the county was an overwhelmingly male activity, with men of all classes being involved. It is suggested that, in the first half of the century at least, Cheshire was a weapon-carrying culture. The decline in homicide in the second half of the century is ascribed to a set of interrelated factors including the relative social stability of the period, and the greater integration of the county into the national political system, especially after 1688, and into the national economy. These and other forces worked together to create a major transition in the culture and social psychology of the early modern English population, in which the decline of homicide was an important element.
Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/131/549/293?rss=1
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Mai 26, 2016, 2:57 p.m.,
Pullin, N.,
Allgemein.
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Mai 26, 2016, 2:57 p.m.,
Kanazawa, S.,
Allgemein.
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Mai 26, 2016, 2:57 p.m.,
Shepard, J.,
Allgemein.
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Mai 26, 2016, 2:57 p.m.,
Klein, L.,
Allgemein.
The intellectual career of William Stukeley (1687–1765) has received much attention. However, one manuscript by Stukeley has never been discussed. In 1757 he composed a short treatise, ‘On the Philosophy of Pleasure’, in which he argued an unusual case, namely, that a man and woman ought to feel entitled to consummate their philosophic friendship with kissing. The manuscript illuminates an interesting episode in Stukeley’s private life, but it also has a broader significance. Firstly, it incorporates many of the themes developed elsewhere by Stukeley, showing how contemporary historical and scientific understanding could be synthesised with a mystical account, of ancient derivation, of the physical and social universe. Secondly, the manuscript sheds light on the changing relations of men and women. Social and cultural developments among the literate in eighteenth-century Britain were facilitating heterosocial interaction, outside the framework of courtship and marriage, in ways that enhanced both the possibilities for heterosocial friendship and the risks attached to it. In his manuscript, Stukeley sought to expand the physical expression of amicable affection between a woman and man: he was looking for ways to move beyond the constraints of Platonic love without falling into libertinism. His position accords with the idea that the pursuit of happiness in the eighteenth century had a sexual dimension. However, while Stukeley sought greater latitude in erotic expression, his effort illustrates the challenge of doing so without undermining the contemporary norms of social order.
Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/131/549/324?rss=1
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Mai 26, 2016, 2:57 p.m.,
White, R.,
Allgemein.
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Mai 26, 2016, 2:57 p.m.,
Trumbore Jones, A.,
Allgemein.
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Mai 26, 2016, 2:57 p.m.,
Goldhill, S.,
Allgemein.
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Mai 26, 2016, 2:57 p.m.,
Green, J. A.,
Allgemein.
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