The Sixteenth-Century World War and the Roots of the Modern World

Author(s):  
Edmund Burke

This essay examines several world historical events from an unfamiliar perspective, that of sixteenth-century Morocco. It seeks to provide a new way of conceptualizing empires, one that builds upon recent work, while imagining them differently. As a key player in the struggle over the western Mediterranean, Morocco’s neglected history has much to tell us about both the power and the limits of the military revolution of early modern times. Moreover, Morocco’s success in withstanding Iberian efforts to extend the reconquista to Northwest Africa served to deflect the expansionary energies across the Atlantic and around Africa. More generally, Morocco provides a useful vantage point for thinking about the emergence of the international structures of power that define the early modern world.

1990 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristian Jensen

One of the most remarkable changes to take place at German Protestant universities during the last decade of the sixteenth century and the first twenty years of the seventeenth century was the return of metaphysics after more than halfa century of absence. University metaphysics has acquired a reputation for sterile aridity which was strengthened rather than diminished by its survival in early modern times, when such disciplines are supposed deservedly to have vanished with the end of the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, this survival has attracted some attention this century. For a long urne it was assumed that German Protestants needed a metaphysical defence against the intellectual vigour of the Jesuits. Lewalter has shown, however, that this was not the case.


Transilvania ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 59-64
Author(s):  
Liviu Cîmpeanu

By definition, a monument has extraordinary features that mark landscape and human minds alike. Without any doubt, the Medieval and Early Modern World of Europe was marked by ecclesiastical monuments, from great cathedrals and abbeys to simple chapels and altars at crossroads. A very interesting case study offers Braşov/ Kronstadt/Brassó, in the south-eastern corner of Transylvania, where historical sources attest several ecclesiastic monuments, in and around the city. Late medieval and early modern documents and chronicles reveal not only interesting data on the monasteries, churches and chapels of Braşov/Kronstadt/Brassó, but also on the way in which citizens and outsiders imagined those monuments in their mental topography of the city. The inhabitants of Braşov/ Kronstadt/Brassó and foreign visitors saw the monasteries, churches and chapels of the city, kept them in mind and referred to them in their (written) accounts, when they wanted to locate certain facts or events. The present paper aims in offering an overview of the late medieval and early modern sources regarding the ecclesiastical monuments of Braşov/Kronstadt/Brassó, as well as an insight into the imagined topography of a Transylvanian city.


2013 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-288
Author(s):  
Carmen Winkel

Abstract During the 18th century, the officers of the European standing armies were usually of noble origin. The requirements the army had towards the officers conflicted with their own self understanding. It was requirement of them to leave their »lone soldier « attitude behind and subordinate into a hierarchically system. The officer corps of the early modern times were dominated by nobles and the aforementioned conflicts had an impact of different intensity on the relation between the point d’honneur and the requirements of the military service. As for the Prussian example, it was assumed that this conflict between noble origin and military rank was less virulent than in the French army. Reason for that believe was mainly that the majority of the Prussian officers originated from the gentry. It was also assumed that the monarch was able to impose a better discipline among his officers. One group of officers, members of the high nobility, has been completely ignored so far. That comes as a surprise given the fact that they accounted for 10 percent of all generals. Those princes had a protestantic background, served in the army for several reasons and were preferentially promoted. Their service in the army did not come without potential conflicts which required the monarch to compromise and using different strategies to solve them.


2003 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 146-149
Author(s):  
Charles E. Butterworth

This is an appealing and clearly written account of how European thinkersfrom late medieval to early modern times reflected upon and explored thequestion of what to do about people of different religions and cultures. Inother words, how should their divergent opinions be understood and, eventually,what practical dispositions should be taken toward them? CaryNederman devotes the introduction and first chapter to an excellent,detailed explanation of the book’s focus and goals. Simply put, he is intentupon challenging two currently dominant views: that toleration emerged inEurope only at the time of the Reformation, and that it is ineluctably linkedwith the kind of political liberalism usually associated with John Locke. Tothis end, he calls the reader’s attention to expressions of religious, and evensomewhat political, toleration that appear early in the twelfth century andcontinue well into the sixteenth century. Unfortunately, he does not succeedin this ambitious, even appealing, stratagem as fully as he would havewished, for he admits in passing that he is content to “offer illustrations,”instead of a “comprehensive account,” of this phenomenon ...


2000 ◽  
Vol 13 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 281-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Lefèvre

The ArgumentIn spite of Koyré's conclusions, there are sufficient reasons to claim that Galileo, and with him the beginnings of classical mechanics in early modern times, was closely related to practical mechanics. It is, however, not completely clear how, and to what extent, practitioners and engineers could have had a part in shaping the modern sciences. By comparing the beginnings of modern dynamics with the beginnings of statics in Antiquity, and in particular with Archimedes — whose rediscovery in the sixteenth century was of great consequence — I will focus on the question of which devices played a comparable role in dynamics to that of the lever and balance in statics. I will also examine where these devices came from. In this way, I will show that the entire world of mechanics of that time — “high” and “low,” practical and theoretical — was of significance for shaping classical mechanics and that a specific relationship between art and science was and is constitutive for modern sciences.


1982 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivor Wilks

In late medieval and early modern times West Africa was one of the principal suppliers of gold to the world bullion market. In this context the Matter of Bitu is one of much importance. Bitu lay on the frontiers of the Malian world and was one of its most flourishing gold marts. So much is clear from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writings, both African and European. A review of this body of evidence indicates that the gold trade at Bitu was controlled by the Wangara, who played a central role in organizing trade between the Akan goldfields and the towns of the Western Sudan. It is shown that Bitu cannot be other than Bighu (Begho, Bew, etc.), the abandoned Wangara town lying on the northwestern fringes of the Akan forest country, which is known (from excavation) to have flourished in the relevant period. In the late fifteenth century the Portuguese established posts on the southern shores of the Akan country, so challenging the monopolistic position which the Wangara had hitherto enjoyed in the gold trade. The Portuguese sent envoys to Mali, presumably to negotiate trade agreements. The bid was apparently unsuccessful. The struggle for the Akan trade in the sixteenth century between Portuguese and Malian interests will be treated in the second part of this paper.


2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANA MARIA ALFONSO-GOLDFARB ◽  
MARCIA H.M. FERRAZ

AbstractIt has been traditionally held that the idea of a prime matter of metals was abandoned in the eighteenth century, especially after the failure of Hermann Boerhaave to find it in mercury. However, documents tell a different story: the search for the metalliferous principle, in the form of an odd substance known as Gur, Guhr, Ghur or Bur, was very much alive in the 1700s. This was a project that involved Boerhaave himself, as is shown by his correspondence with J.B. Bassand. The first mention of this strange material appears in Sarepta, a collection of sermons by the sixteenth-century Bohemian preacher Johannes Mathesius, sometimes mentioned in the specialized literature but rarely studied. This paper discusses the various conceptions of this material held as the prime matter of metals, from Mathesius to the eighteenth century, involving reputed authors such as John Webster, Jan B. van Helmont, Georg E. Stahl and Boerhaave.


Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7 (105)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Taras Kobishchanov

The evolution of the identification of imaginary communities, including through group oppositions ‘Friend-Foe’, is one of the least studied phenomena of the historical process. The Muslim-Christian look at each other across the Mediterranean provides an extensive field of research in this regard. In recent decades the scientists prefer to talk about the Mediterranean World as a single space that not only divides but connects the Arab-Muslim and Eastern- and Western-European civilizations. This point of view stands up to the still popular binary oppositions as “East vs. West” or “Christian world vs. Muslim world”. The simplicity of such approach considering the humanity to be divided to culturally incompatible and religiously hostile civilizations is proved in particular by numerous connections between the inhabitants of Europe and the Middle East at the early Modern times. Russia has entered into the close cooperation with the Arab world in the 16th — 18th centuries: first through pilgrim-ages and inter-Orthodox contacts, and in the Catherine epoch by organizing the military invasion of the region. The presented article is about how different groups of Arabs, — Muslims and Christians, people of religion and secular rulers, — were perceiving Europe in general and Russia in particular at the early Modern times.


1999 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J.B. Trim

AbstractThe Elizabethan epoch has long been regarded as a period in which England, isolated from the rest of Europe, fell behind the Continental powers during an era of "military revolution." More recently, England's sixteenth-century military history has attracted a growing number of scholars, but their conclusions vary widely and seem impossible to integrate. Yet recent analyses have generally been too narrowly focussed on events in Elizabethan England. This article (based on a synthesis of secondary studies, including social and cultural as well as military histories, but supported by evidence from the most important printed primary sources), attempts to put the military history of Tudor England in the setting, firstly of both earlier and later developments in England itself; and secondly, of the wider, contemporaneous experience of warfare in Europe as a whole. An understanding of the context of warfare can provide a better basis for future research into an issue with significant wider implications for early modern historiography.


2001 ◽  
Vol 14 (s1) ◽  
pp. 11-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
wolfgang lefèvre

in spite of koyré's conclusions, there are sufficient reasons to claim that galileo, and with him the beginnings of classical mechanics in early modern times, was closely related to practical mechanics. it is, however, not completely clear how, and to what extent, practitioners and engineers could have had a part in shaping the modern sciences. by comparing the beginnings of modern dynamics with the beginnings of statics in antiquity, and in particular with archimedes — whose rediscovery in the sixteenth century was of great consequence — i will focus on the question of which devices played a comparable role in dynamics to that of the lever and balance in statics. i will also examine where these devices came from. in this way, i will show that the entire world of mechanics of that time — “high” and “low,” practical and theoretical — was of significance for shaping classical mechanics and that a specific relationship between art and science was and is constitutive for modern sciences.


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