Sociologists and historians are not always the best of neighbours, each group tending to perceive the other in terms of the crudest of stereotypes. However, the two approaches are obviously complementary – change is structured, and structures change. Each discipline can free the other from its own kind of parochialism and the aim of this book is to bridge the gap between these tow subcultures, to give historians a more acute sense of structure and sociologists a more acute sense of change.

Sociology and history (Controversies in sociology)

Politics & Social Sciences

BURKE, PETER

Social Sciences

G. Allen & Unwin

Long neglected by historians, the concept of cultural history has in the last few decades come to the fore of historical research into early modern Europe. Due in no small part to the pioneering work of Peter Burke, the tools of the cultural historian are now routinely brought to bear on every aspect of history, and have transformed our understanding of the past.First published in 1978, this study examines the broad sweep of pre-industrial Europe's popular culture. From the world of the professional entertainer to the songs, stories, rituals and plays of ordinary people, it shows how the attitudes and values of the otherwise inarticulate shaped - and were shaped by - the shifting social, religious and political conditions of European society between 1500 and 1800.This third edition of Peter Burke's groundbreaking study has been published to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the book's publication in 1978. It provides a new introduction reflecting the growth of cultural history, and its increasing influence on 'mainstream' history, as well as an extensive supplementary bibliography which further adds to the information about new research in the area.

Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (Harper Torchbooks)

History

Europe

Harpercollins College Div

In 1929 two French historians, Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch, founded Annales, a historical journal which rapidly became one of the most influential in the world. They believed that economic history, social history and the history of ideas were as important as political history, and that historians should not be narrow specialists but should learn from their colleagues in the social sciences.   Two of the most distinguished French members of the Annales school are represented in this volume - Fernand Braudel and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie - the core of which is the debate on the Price Revolution of the sixteenth century dealt with by Cipolla, Chabert, Hoszowski and Verlinden.   Within the volume, all the contributions are oriented towards Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and all are concerned with long-term changes, and with the relation between economic growth and social change. It includes articles on the European movement of expansion discussed by Malowist and the activities of the Hungarian nobles as entrepreneurs discussed by Pach, and two articles on wider issues: Le Roy Ladurie on the history of climate, and Braudel, summing up the Annales programme, on the relation between history and the social sciences. This classic text was first published in 1972.

Economy and society in early modern Europe;: Essays from Annales (A Torchbook library edition)

Business & Money

Economics

Harper&Row

Renaissance Thinkers offers concise and readable introductions to four of the most important philosophical writers of the European Renaissance. All were well-schooled in the literary classics of ancient Greece and Rome, and all assumed that the insights of pagan antiquity were still relevant to the Christian era in which they lived. Erasmus and More believed that the highest human good lay in a union of classical wisdom and Christian teaching; Montaigne displayed a more skeptical temper, while Bacon sketched out a scientific program which was intended to supersede the authority of classical antiquity and literary humanism altogether. This is an authoritative collection of introductions to the achievements and thought of leading intellectual figures of the past whose ideas still influence the way we think today.

Renaissance Thinkers: Erasmus, Bacon, More, and Montaigne (Past Masters)

Kenny, Anthony

Quinton, Anthony

McConica, James

Arts & Photography

Oxford University Press

Montaigne (Past Masters)

Offers a brief profile of the French intellectual, describes his development of the essay, and assesses his influence on modern literature

Biographies & Memoirs

Vico (Past Masters)

Castiglione's Cortegiano, or the Courtier, is one of the best-known texts of the Italian Renaissance. When it first appeared in 1528, the Courtier was widely read as a guide to contemporary conduct. Its popularity led to its publication in six languages in twenty different European centers in the sixteenth century alone. While the text itself has been studied very carefully in recent years as the embodiment of the spirit of the High Renaissance, its multitude of readers, spread over the world, has received much less attention. In this engaging study Peter Burke explores how readers over the years have responded to the Courtier. 
Because it was read so widely in Europe, the Courtier affords Burke an ideal test case for the diffusion and reception of ideas. From Poland and Hungary to England, Portugal, and even the New World, he takes us on a fascinating tour of the courts, libraries, and reading rooms of Europe in search of Castiglione's idea of the perfect courtier. He shows how changing responses to the Courtier, both positive and negative, reveal changing social values and how regional variations in its reception reflect the emerging cultural map of early modern Europe. His evidence includes printing history, translations, marginalia, and records of sale and possession. He concludes with a discussion of the later fortune of the Courtier, including its role in the "civilizing process" and its curious appeal to writers as different as Samuel Johnson and W. B. Yeats.
Informed by Burke's considerable knowledge of printing and publishing history, this book contributes to our growing understanding of the history of the book and to our knowledge of the Renaissance and its reception.

The Fortunes of the Courtier: The European Reception of Castiglione's Cortegiano (Penn State Series in the History of the Book)

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Penn State University Press

Louis XIV was a man like any other, but the money and attention lavished on his public image by the French government transformed him into a godlike figure. In this engrossing book, an internationally respected historian gives an account of contemporary representations of Louis XIV and shows how the making of the royal image illuminates the relationship between art and power. Images of Louis XIV included hundreds of oil paintings and engravings, three-hundred-odd medals struck to commemorate the major events of the reign, sculptures, and bronzes, as well as plays, ballets (in which the king himself sometimes appeared on stage), operas, odes, sermons, official newspapers and histories, fireworks, fountains, and tapestries. Drawing on an analysis of these representations as well as on surviving documentary sources, Peter Burke shows the conscious attempt to "invent" the image of the king and reveals how the supervision of the royal image was entrusted to a commitee, the so-called small academy. This book is not only a fascinating chronological study of the mechanics of the image-making of a king over the course of a seventy-year reign but is also an investigation into the genre of cultural construction. Burke discusses the element of propaganda implicit in image-making, the manipulation of seventeenth-century media of communication (oral, visual, and textual) and their codes (literary and artistic), and the intended audience and its response. He concludes by comparing and contrasting Louis's public image with that of other rulers ranging from Augustus to contemporary American presidents.

The Fabrication of Louis XIV

Historical

Yale University Press

The Polymath: A Cultural History from Leonardo da Vinci to Susan Sontag

<div> From Leonardo Da Vinci to Oliver Sacks: the first history of the western polymath, from the Renaissance to the present&nbsp; "An absorbing group portrait and intellectual history."--Kirkus Reviews "An admirable mixture of industry and erudition."--Robert Wilson, Wall Street Journal From Leonardo Da Vinci to John Dee&nbsp;and Comenius, from&nbsp;George Eliot to Oliver Sacks and Susan Sontag, polymaths have moved the frontiers of knowledge in countless ways. But history can be unkind to scholars with such encyclopedic interests. All too often these individuals are remembered for just one part of their valuable achievements. &nbsp; In this engaging, erudite account, renowned cultural historian Peter Burke argues for a more rounded view. Identifying 500 western polymaths, Burke explores their wide-ranging successes and shows how their rise matched a rapid growth of knowledge in the age of the invention of printing, the discovery of the New World and the Scientific Revolution. It is only more recently that the further acceleration of knowledge has led to increased specialization and to an environment that is less supportive of wide-ranging scholars and scientists. Spanning the Renaissance to the present day, Burke changes our understanding of this remarkable intellectual species. </div>

Arts & Literature

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