Download or read book A Cultural History of Ideas in the Modern Age written by Stefanos Geroulanos and published by . This book was released on with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Democracy and Truth written by Sophia Rosenfeld and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2018-12-31 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Fake news," wild conspiracy theories, misleading claims, doctored photos, lies peddled as facts, facts dismissed as lies—citizens of democracies increasingly inhabit a public sphere teeming with competing claims and counterclaims, with no institution or person possessing the authority to settle basic disputes in a definitive way. The problem may be novel in some of its details—including the role of today's political leaders, along with broadcast and digital media, in intensifying the epistemic anarchy—but the challenge of determining truth in a democratic world has a backstory. In this lively and illuminating book, historian Sophia Rosenfeld explores a longstanding and largely unspoken tension at the heart of democracy between the supposed wisdom of the crowd and the need for information to be vetted and evaluated by a learned elite made up of trusted experts. What we are witnessing now is the unraveling of the détente between these competing aspects of democratic culture. In four bracing chapters, Rosenfeld substantiates her claim by tracing the history of the vexed relationship between democracy and truth. She begins with an examination of the period prior to the eighteenth-century Age of Revolutions, where she uncovers the political and epistemological foundations of our democratic world. Subsequent chapters move from the Enlightenment to the rise of both populist and technocratic notions of democracy between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the troubling trends—including the collapse of social trust—that have led to the rise of our "post-truth" public life. Rosenfeld concludes by offering suggestions for how to defend the idea of truth against the forces that would undermine it.
Download or read book Common Sense written by Sophia Rosenfeld and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Common sense has always been a cornerstone of American politics. In 1776, Tom Paine’s vital pamphlet with that title sparked the American Revolution. And today, common sense—the wisdom of ordinary people, knowledge so self-evident that it is beyond debate—remains a powerful political ideal, utilized alike by George W. Bush’s aw-shucks articulations and Barack Obama’s down-to-earth reasonableness. But far from self-evident is where our faith in common sense comes from and how its populist logic has shaped modern democracy. Common Sense: A Political History is the first book to explore this essential political phenomenon. The story begins in the aftermath of England’s Glorious Revolution, when common sense first became a political ideal worth struggling over. Sophia Rosenfeld’s accessible and insightful account then wends its way across two continents and multiple centuries, revealing the remarkable individuals who appropriated the old, seemingly universal idea of common sense and the new strategic uses they made of it. Paine may have boasted that common sense is always on the side of the people and opposed to the rule of kings, but Rosenfeld demonstrates that common sense has been used to foster demagoguery and exclusivity as well as popular sovereignty. She provides a new account of the transatlantic Enlightenment and the Age of Revolutions, and offers a fresh reading on what the eighteenth century bequeathed to the political ferment of our own time. Far from commonsensical, the history of common sense turns out to be rife with paradox and surprise.
Download or read book The Descent of Ideas written by DonaldR. Kelley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-29 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 'history of ideas', better known these days as intellectual history, is a flourishing field of study which has been the object of much controversy but hardly any historical exploration. This major new work from Donald R. Kelley is the first comprehensive history of intellectual history, tracing the study of the history of thought from ancient, medieval and early modern times, its emergence as the 'history of ideas' in the 18th century, and its subsequent expansion. The point of departure for this study is the perspective opened up by Victor Cousin in the early 19th-century on 'Eclecticism' and its association with the history of philosophy established by Renaissance scholars. Kelley considers a broad range of topics, including the rivalry between 'ideas' and language, the rise of cultural history, the contributions of certain 19th- and 20th-century practitioners of the history of ideas in interdisciplinary areas of philosophy, literature and the sciences, and finally the current state of intellectual history. The central theme of the book is the interplay between the canon of philosophical thought and the tradition of language and textual study, the divergence of the latter marking the 'descent of ideas' into the realm of cultural history.
Download or read book A Cultural History of the Sea in Antiquity written by Marie-Claire Beaulieu and published by . This book was released on 2024-09-19 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sea is omnipresent in the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean basin. It is an inexhaustible source of food, but also a well-traveled roadway and a means to communicate, trade with, or wage war against one's neighbors. Perhaps because these practical meanings of the sea were so deeply embedded in daily life, the sea also had a profound religious and symbolic significance for ancient people, from the worship of sea-deities by anxious mariners to the creation of intricate literary devices based on 'the wine-dark sea' and concepts such as insularity. People even imagined that, at the edge of the world, where the ocean meets the sky, was the entrance to the Underworld as well as to Olympus, the realm of the gods. In between these distant mythical shores and the well-known contours of the Mediterranean was a space where all utopias and dystopias could be projected-a space to discover and rediscover endlessly. This volume addresses the constant interplay between the real and the imaginary significance of the sea in ancient thought, from philosophy and science to shipbuilding, trade routes, military technology, poetry, mythmaking, and iconography. The volume spans a period of almost two millennia and an area that covers Spain to India and China, and West Africa to the British Isles, demonstrating the global interconnection of cultures and trade, conceived in its broadest possible sense, in the ancient world.
Download or read book A Cultural History of Physics written by Karoly Simonyi and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2012-01-25 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the physical sciences are a continuously evolving source of technology and of understanding about our world, they have become so specialized and rely on so much prerequisite knowledge that for many people today the divide between the sciences and the humanities seems even greater than it was when C. P. Snow delivered his famous 1959 lecture,
Download or read book A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in Antiquity written by Susan J. Vincent and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A cultural history of dress and fashion' presents an authoritative survey from ancient times to the present. This set of six volumes covers over 2,500 years of dress and fashion. Volume 1: Antiquity (500BCE-800AD), edited by Mary Harlow; Volume 2: The Medieval Age (800-1450), edited by Sarah-Grace Heller; Volume 3: The Renaissance (1450-1650), edited by Elizabeth Currie; Volume 4: The Age of Enlightenment (1650-1800), edited by Peter McNeil; Volume 5: The Age of Empire (1800-1920), edited by Denise Amy Baxter; Volume 6: The Modern Age (1920-2000+), edited by Alexandra Palmer. Each volume discusses the same key themes in its chapters: 1. Textiles 2. Production and Distribution 3. The Body 4. Belief 5. Gender and Sexuality 6. Status 7. Ethnicity 8. Visual Representations 9. Literary Representations. This structure means readers can either have a broad overview of a period by reading a volume or follow a theme through history by reading the relevant chapter in each volume. Superbly illustrated, the full six volume set combines to present the most authoritative and comprehensive survey available on dress and fashion through history.
Download or read book A Cultural History of Shopping in Antiquity written by Mary Harlow and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-06-02 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Cultural History of Shopping was a Library Journal Best in Reference selection for 2022. Covering the period from 500 BCE to 500 CE, this is the first book to address the cultural history of shoppers and shopping in antiquity. Evidence for the existence of shops has been found across many archaeological sites in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East but the study of shops and retailing in antiquity is a relatively new subject. From Classical Greece through to the Late Roman Empire, shopping shifted from being a means to an end – a method of supplementing the family diet or providing material goods the household could not manufacture itself – to a form of experience where the processes of browsing and not purchasing became as important as buying. This dramatic transformation is a reflection of the changing material desires of these societies and their perspectives on the ways in which the fulfilment of those desires could be achieved. Recurring themes in this interdisciplinary volume include the lives of 'ordinary' people; the relationship between gender and shopping; the contrast between Greece and Rome; the attitudes towards shopkeepers; the placing of shops in the cityscape; and the zoning of particular crafts and products. A Cultural History of Shopping in Antiquity presents an overview of the period with themes addressing practices and processes; spaces and places; shoppers and identities; luxury and everyday; home and family; visual and literary representations; reputation, trust and credit; and governance, regulation and the state.
Download or read book A Cultural History of the Senses in the Modern Age written by David Howes and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-10-23 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 20th century, many aspects of life became 'a matter of perception' in the wake of the multiplication of media, stylistic experimentation, and the rise of multiculturalism. Life sped up as a result of new modes of transportation – automobiles and airplanes – and communication – telephones and personal computers – which emphasized the rapid movement of people and ideas. The proliferation of synthetic products and simulated experiences, from artificial flavors to video games, in turn, created heady virtual worlds of sensation. This progressive mediation and acceleration of sensation, along with the sensory and environmental pollution it often spawned, also sparked various countertrends, such as the 'back to nature' movement, the craft movement, slow food and alternative medicine. This volume shows how attending to the sensory dynamics of the modern age yields many fresh insights into the intertwined processes which gave the 20th century its particular feel of technological prowess and gaudy artificiality. A Cultural History of the Senses in the Modern Age presents essays on the following topics: the social life of the senses; urban sensations; the senses in the marketplace; the senses in religion; the senses in philosophy and science; medicine and the senses; the senses in literature; art and the senses; and sensory media.
Download or read book A Revolution in Language written by Sophia A. Rosenfeld and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2003-08-01 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the relationship between the ideas of the Enlightenment and the culture and ideology of the French Revolution? This book takes up that classic question by concentrating on changing conceptions of language and, especially, signs during the second half of the eighteenth century. The author traces, first, the emergence of a new interest in the possibility of gestural communication within the philosophy, theater, and pedagogy of the last decades of the Old Regime. She then explores the varied uses and significance of a variety of semiotic experiments, including the development of a sign language for the deaf, within the language politics of the Revolution. A Revolution in Language shows not only that many key revolutionary thinkers were unusually preoccupied by questions of language, but also that prevailing assumptions about words and other signs profoundly shaped revolutionaries' efforts to imagine and to institute an ideal polity between 1789 and the start of the new century. This book reveals the links between Enlightenment epistemology and the development of modern French political culture.
Download or read book Liberty and Freedom written by David Hackett Fischer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 880 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling author of "Washington's Crossing" and "Albion's Seed" offers a strikingly original history of America's founding principles. Fischer examines liberty and freedom not as philosophical or political abstractions, but as folkways and popular beliefs deeply embedded in American culture. 400+ illustrations, 250 in full color.
Download or read book The Age of Glass written by Stephen Eskilson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-02-08 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Glass has long transformed the architectural landscape. From the Crystal Palace through to the towering glass spires of today's cities, few architectural materials have held such immense symbolic resonance in the modern era. The Age of Glass explores the cultural and technological ascension of glass in modern and contemporary architecture. Showing how the use of glass is driven as much by changing cultural concerns as it is by developments in technology and style, it traces the richly interwoven material, symbolic, and ideological histories of glass to show how it has produced and dispersed meaning in architecture over the past two centuries. The book's chapters focus on key moments within the modern history of architecture, moments when glass came to the forefront of architectural thought, and which illustrate how glass has been used at different times to project different cultural ideas. A wide range of topics are explored – from the tension between expressionism and functionalism, to the persistent theme of glass and social class, to how glass has reflected political ideas from Nazism through to today's global consumer capitalism. The book also grapples with current arguments about sustainability, while, taking into account the advent of digital LED screens and 'smart glass', offering new cultural perspectives on the future and asking what glass architecture will signify in the digital age. Combining close readings of buildings with insights drawn from research, plus good storytelling and strong contemporary relevance, The Age of Glass offers a fascinating new perspective on modern architecture and culture.
Download or read book A Cultural History of Medicine in the Modern Age written by Todd Meyers and published by . This book was released on 2024-09-19 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Cultural History of Medicine presents an authoritative survey from ancient times to the present. The set of six volumes covers over 2500 years of history, charting the changes in medical experience, knowledge and practices throughout history. This volume, A Cultural History of Medicine in the Modern Age, explores medicine as a cultural practice from 1920 to the present day. As with all the volumes in the illustrated Cultural History of Medicine set, this volume presents essays on the environment, food, war, animals, objects, experiences, authority and the mind. A Cultural History of Medicine in the Modern Age is the most authoritative and comprehensive survey available on medicine in the modern period.
Download or read book A Cultural History of Memory in the Early Modern Age written by Marek Tamm and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Cultural History of the Modern Age written by Friedell E. and published by . This book was released on 1953 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Loving Literature written by Deidre Shauna Lynch and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-12-22 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most common—and wounding—misconceptions about literary scholars today is that they simply don’t love books. While those actually working in literary studies can easily refute this claim, such a response risks obscuring a more fundamental question: why should they? That question led Deidre Shauna Lynch into the historical and cultural investigation of Loving Literature. How did it come to be that professional literary scholars are expected not just to study, but to love literature, and to inculcate that love in generations of students? What Lynch discovers is that books, and the attachments we form to them, have played a vital role in the formation of private life—that the love of literature, in other words, is deeply embedded in the history of literature. Yet at the same time, our love is neither self-evident nor ahistorical: our views of books as objects of affection have clear roots in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century publishing, reading habits, and domestic history. While never denying the very real feelings that warm our relationship to books, Loving Literature nonetheless serves as a riposte to those who use the phrase “the love of literature” as if its meaning were transparent. Lynch writes, “It is as if those on the side of love of literature had forgotten what literary texts themselves say about love’s edginess and complexities.” With this masterly volume, Lynch restores those edges and allows us to revel in those complexities.
Download or read book Identity written by Gerald Izenberg and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2019-03-08 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Identity: The Necessity of a Modern Idea is the first comprehensive history of identity as the answer to the question, "who, or what, am I?" It covers the century from the end of World War I, when identity in this sense first became an issue for writers and philosophers, to 2010, when European political leaders declared multiculturalism a failure just as Canada, which pioneered it, was hailing its success. Along the way the book examines Erik Erikson's concepts of psychological identity and identity crisis, which made the word famous; the turn to collective identity and the rise of identity politics in Europe and America; varieties and theories of group identity; debates over accommodating collective identities within liberal democracy; the relationship between individual and group identity; the postmodern critique of identity as a concept; and the ways it nonetheless transformed the social sciences and altered our ideas of ethics. At the same time the book is an argument for the validity and indispensability of identity, properly understood. Identity was not a concept before the twentieth century because it was taken for granted. The slaughter of World War I undermined the honored identities of prewar Europe and, as a result, the idea of identity as something objective and stable was thrown into question at the same time that people began to sense that it was psychologically and socially necessary. We can't be at home in our bodies, act effectively in the world, or interact comfortably with others without a stable sense of who we are. Gerald Izenberg argues that, while it is a mistake to believe that our identities are givens that we passively discover about ourselves, decreed by God, destiny, or nature, our most important identities have an objective foundation in our existential situation as bodies, social beings, and creatures who aspire to meaning and transcendence, as well as in the legitimacy of our historical particularity.
