Time and the French Revolution

Time and the French Revolution PDF Author: Matthew John Shaw
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 0861933117
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 205

Book Description
A history of the innovation and effects of the French Republican Calendar. The French Republican Calendar was perhaps the boldest of all the reforms undertaken in Revolutionary France. Introduced in 1793 and used until 1806, the Calendar not only reformed the weeks and months of the year, but decimalisedthe hours of the day and dated the year from the beginning of the French Republic. This book not only provides a history of the calendar, but places it in the context of eighteenth-century time-consciousness, arguing that the French were adept at working within several systems of time-keeping, whether that of the Church, civil society, or the rhythms of the seasons. Developments in time-keeping technology and changes in working patterns challenged early-modern temporalities, and the new calendar can also be viewed as a step on the path toward a more modern conception of time. In this context, the creation of the calendar is viewed not just as an aspect of the broader republican programme of social, political and cultural reform, but as a reflection of a broader interest in time and the culmination of several generations' concern with how society should be policed. Matthew Shaw is a curatorat the British Library, London.

The Pope's Body

The Pope's Body PDF Author: Agostino Paravicini-Bagliani
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226034379
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448

Book Description
In contrast to the role traditionally fulfilled by secular rulers, the pope has been perceived as an individual person existing in a body subject to decay and death, yet at the same time a corporeal representation of Christ and the Church, eternity and salvation. Using an array of evidence from the eleventh through the fifteenth centuries, Agostino Paravicini- Bagliani addresses this paradox. He studies the rituals, metaphors, and images of the pope's body as they developed over time and shows how they resulted in the expectation that the pope's body be simultaneously physical and metaphorical. Also included is a particular emphasis on the thirteenth century when, during the pontificate of Boniface VIII (1294-1303), the papal court became the focus of medicine and the natural sciences as physicians devised ways to protect the pope's health and prolong his life. Masterfully translated from the Italian, this engaging history of the pope's body provides a new perspective for readers to understand the papacy, both historically and in our own time.

Stuff and Money in the Time of the French Revolution

Stuff and Money in the Time of the French Revolution PDF Author: Rebecca L. Spang
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674047036
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 361

Book Description
Winner of the Louis Gottschalk Prize, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies A Financial Times Best History Book of the Year A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year Rebecca L. Spang, who revolutionized our understanding of the restaurant, has written a new history of money. It uses one of the most infamous examples of monetary innovation, the assignats—a currency initially defined by French revolutionaries as “circulating land”—to demonstrate that money is as much a social and political mediator as it is an economic instrument. Following the assignats from creation to abandonment, Spang shows them to be subject to the same slippages between policies and practice, intentions and outcomes, as other human inventions. “This is a quite brilliant, assertive book.” —Patrice Higonnet, Times Literary Supplement “Brilliant...What [Spang] proposes is nothing less than a new conceptualization of the revolution...She has provided historians—and not just those of France or the French Revolution—with a new set of lenses with which to view the past.” —Arthur Goldhammer, Bookforum “[Spang] views the French Revolution from rewardingly new angles by analyzing the cultural significance of money in the turbulent years of European war, domestic terror and inflation.” —Tony Barber, Financial Times

The French Revolution

The French Revolution PDF Author: Florin Aftalion
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521368100
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Book Description
The economic history of revolutionary France is still a neglected area in studies of the Revolution of 1789. Whilst some attention has been given to the condition of the peasants, the urban working classes and the financial crisis of the Ancient Régime, there has been a general tendency to regard economic factors as external and somewhat peripheral to the truly political nature of the Revolution. This book is designed to redress the balance, providing a clear, accessible, and thought-provoking guide to the economic background to the French Revolution. Professor Aftalion analyses the policies followed by successive revolutionary assemblies, examining in detail taxation, the confiscation of church property, the assignats, and the siege economy of the Terror. He shows how decisions taken in 1789 by the Constituent Assembly inevitably led to a deepening financial and economic crisis, and to increasingly radical and disastrous policies. The study is important also for its exposure of many of the economic fallacies propounded both at the time by many Frenchmen and later by many modern historians.

Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants

Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants PDF Author: Anthony Benezet
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Guinea
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Book Description


Yvain

Yvain PDF Author: Chretien de Troyes
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300187580
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
The twelfth-century French poet Chrétien de Troyes is a major figure in European literature. His courtly romances fathered the Arthurian tradition and influenced countless other poets in England as well as on the continent. Yet because of the difficulty of capturing his swift-moving style in translation, English-speaking audiences are largely unfamiliar with the pleasures of reading his poems. Now, for the first time, an experienced translator of medieval verse who is himself a poet provides a translation of Chrétien’s major poem, Yvain, in verse that fully and satisfyingly captures the movement, the sense, and the spirit of the Old French original. Yvain is a courtly romance with a moral tenor; it is ironic and sometimes bawdy; the poetry is crisp and vivid. In addition, the psychological and the socio-historical perceptions of the poem are of profound literary and historical importance, for it evokes the emotions and the values of a flourishing, vibrant medieval past.

Religion and the Political Imagination

Religion and the Political Imagination PDF Author: Ira Katznelson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139493175
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
The theory of secularisation became a virtually unchallenged truth of twentieth-century social science. First sketched out by Enlightenment philosophers, then transformed into an irreversible global process by nineteenth-century thinkers, the theory was given substance by the precipitate drop in religious practice across Western Europe in the 1960s. However, the re-emergence of acute conflicts at the interface between religion and politics has confounded such assumptions. It is clear that these ideas must be rethought. Yet, as this distinguished, international team of scholars reveal, not everything contained in the idea of secularisation was false. Analyses of developments since 1500 reveal a wide spectrum of historical processes: partial secularisation in some spheres has been accompanied by sacralisation in others. Utilising new approaches derived from history, philosophy, politics and anthropology, the essays collected in Religion and the Political Imagination offer new ways of thinking about the urgency of religious issues in the contemporary world.

An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa

An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa PDF Author: Alexander Falconbridge
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 64

Book Description


Myth and Law Among the Indo-Europeans

Myth and Law Among the Indo-Europeans PDF Author: Jaan Puhvel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Book Description
This Book Is A Result Of The Ongoing Activity Centered On Discovering And Understanding The Mythic, Religions, Social And Legal Underpinnings Of The Ancient Indo-European-Speaking Continuum In Terms Of Their Oldest Or Most Archaic Manifestations. Without Dustcover, Spine Slightly Damaged At Bottom, Ex-Libris, Usual Library Stamps And Markings, Text Absolutely Clean, Condition Good.

Nations under God

Nations under God PDF Author: Anna M. Grzymała-Busse
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400866456
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 439

Book Description
Why churches in some democratic nations wield enormous political power while churches in other democracies don't In some religious countries, churches have drafted constitutions, restricted abortion, and controlled education. In others, church influence on public policy is far weaker. Why? Nations under God argues that where religious and national identities have historically fused, churches gain enormous moral authority—and covert institutional access. These powerful churches then shape policy in backrooms and secret meetings instead of through open democratic channels such as political parties or the ballot box. Through an in-depth historical analysis of six Christian democracies that share similar religious profiles yet differ in their policy outcomes—Ireland and Italy, Poland and Croatia, and the United States and Canada—Anna Grzymała-Busse examines how churches influenced education, abortion, divorce, stem cell research, and same-sex marriage. She argues that churches gain the greatest political advantage when they appear to be above politics. Because institutional access is covert, they retain their moral authority and their reputation as defenders of the national interest and the common good. Nations under God shows how powerful church officials in Ireland, Canada, and Poland have directly written legislation, vetoed policies, and vetted high-ranking officials. It demonstrates that religiosity itself is not enough for churches to influence politics—churches in Italy and Croatia, for example, are not as influential as we might think—and that churches allied to political parties, such as in the United States, have less influence than their notoriety suggests.