Race, Culture, and Class

2019 ◽  
pp. 339-358
Author(s):  
Richard Drayton
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
International Society ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Imaginaries ◽  
Global Middle Class ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western European ◽  
Internal Integration ◽  
The Moment

This chapter takes a broader perspective, demonstrating that the middle class in every society has been both “middle” in terms of status, and “middle” in terms of its capacity for engagement with social groups above or below. The history of the global middle class is in essence the history of global processes of mediation. The post-1500 early modern forms of globalization had three key effects. First, the moment of European hegemony in the period from circa 1750 to 1950 was correlated with the internal integration of Western Christendom and its diasporas on the basis of ideas of “civilization” and “whiteness” and with an ever-expanding external regime of links between Western European and non-European social formations. Second, connected to these processes of integration and external linkages was the production, and growth in importance, of mediating groups in every corner of the globe, of which the European bourgeois was a local and privileged expression. Third, linked to this violent integration of international society, and the associated primacy of mediation and mediators, was a process of standardization of social imaginaries, manners, and customs, a pressure toward the reduction of specific complexity into general categories, toward uniformity.

An Early Jesuit Encounter with the Qur’an

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Paul Shore
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
European Language ◽  
Intended Audience ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western European

The manuscipt Animadversiones, Notae ac Disputationes in Pestilentem Alcoranum is an almost entirely unknown translation of the Qur'an into baroque Latin completed by the Jesuit priest Ignazio Lomellini in 1622, of which only one copy exists. It is accompanied by extensive commentaries and includes a complete text of the Qur’an in Arabic and numerous marginalia. It is, therefore, one of the earliest complete translations of the Qur’an into a western European language and a crucial document of the encounter between western Christianity and Islam in the early modern period. This essay examines Lomellini’s understanding of Arabic and, specifically, of the cultural and religious underpinnings of Qur’anic Arabic. Special attention is given to his lexical choices. This essay also deals with the document’s intended audience, the resources upon which he drew (including the library of his patron, Cardinal Alessandro Orsini), and the manuscript’s relationship to the Jesuits’ broader literary and missionary efforts. Finally, it asks why scholars, particularly those who study the history of the Jesuits, have ignored this manuscript and its author.

Bourgeoisie

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Maza
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social History ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
French History ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

The concept of a group called “the bourgeoisie” is unusual in being both central to early modern and modern European history, and at the same time highly controversial. In old regime France, people frequently used the words “bourgeois” or “bourgeoisie” but what they meant by them was very different from the meaning historians later assigned to those terms. In the nineteenth century the idea of a “bourgeoisie” became closely associated with Marxian historical narratives of capitalist ascendancy. Does it still make sense to speak of a “bourgeoisie”? This article attempts to lay out and clarify the terms of the problem by posing a series of questions about this aspect of the social history of Ancien Régime France, with a brief look across the Channel for comparison. It considers first the problem of definition: what was and is meant by “the bourgeoisie” in the context of early modern French history? Second, what is the link between eighteenth-century economic change and the existence and nature of such a group, and can we still connect the origins of the French Revolution to the “rise” of a bourgeoisie? And finally, can the history of perceptions and representations of a bourgeoisie or middle class help us to understand why the concept has been so problematic in the longer run of French history?

The British Committee and International Society: History and Theory

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brunello Vigezzi
Keyword(s):  
Critical Point ◽  
International Society ◽  
Future Development ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
English School ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Moment ◽  
British Committee ◽  
Point Of Departure

The British Committee on the Theory of International Politics is generally considered the original core of the “English School.” Equally often, scholars have identified as one of its characteristic elements the importance it attributed to “international society” as a force aimed at enlivening and regulating, as far as possible, power relations between states. The attention it paid to international society is also seen as consistent with the importance the authors of the British Committee attributed to “history” and in particular to the “history of international society” as a means to understand and reconstruct international life in the past and the present. However, the internal history of the British Committee is all too often neglected. Studies concerned with the orientations of the English School have mainly sought to analyze the thinking of this or that author without considering the work of the British Committee as a whole. In other words, scholars have tended to pay little attention to the moment when the British Committee began to examine “international society” and the manner in which it did so. In particular, the achievement of the British Committee discussions during 1961–1962 was important, and it was the beginning of a development of great interest. The various texts, the debates, do not limit themselves to a sort of rich and varied list of the component parts of an “international society.” Instead, they paint an overall picture, and they guarantee an interconnection between the reflections of the individuals and the overall orientation of the Committee. Moreover, they are the critical point of departure for the future development of theory.

ImagiNations from a History of Space to a History of Movement

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ottmar Ette
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Jose Marti ◽  
Cuban Literature ◽  
Ongoing Process ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Relational Logic ◽  
Cuban History

This chapter provides a postnational perspective on Cuban history, culture, and its literature, from the moment of its invention until the Castro era. Many of our theories and epistemologies are informed by spatial and static views that keep us from recognizing the highly dynamic developments and processes at their base. As an alternative, Ette appeals to a transition from history informed by spatiality to a history shaped by movement. By examining the first examples of early modern cartography, Ette argues that Cuba had been perceived from the moment of discovery as a potential global island. Furthermore, the author cites prime examples of Cuban literature, among them the works of José Martí, that follow a logic of inclusion, not one of exclusion, based on a theory of global relationality. Given the fact that Cuban literature has been written on all continents—mostly in Spanish, but also on a translingual level in the respective languages of the countries of exile—the idea of Cuba as a global island could become part of a trans-areal archipelago, one built upon the foundation of symmetrical relations that develop a relational logic in accordance with the ongoing process of globalization.

Population Planning for a Global Middle Class

2019 ◽  
pp. 85-102
Author(s):  
Alison Bashford
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Nuclear Family ◽  
Population Control ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Population Planning ◽  
Global Middle Class ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Ideas

This chapter shows how, in the twentieth century, states aimed to implement new ideas of population planning in order to foster the emergence of stable middle classes. The control of fertility thus became an integral part of the global history of the middle classes. Because the nuclear family was at the core of middle-class lifestyle and a prerequisite for its reproduction and economic capacity, states across the globe resorted to population planning after the early twentieth century. For economic and political planners immersed in adapted Malthusian arguments, limiting fertility was a means by which widespread poverty could be mitigated and standards of living raised at a population level to allow everyone to afford middle-class lifestyles. Population control was thus part of the dream of, and for, a global middle class.

Servants in the Hetmanate Cities

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 369-380
Author(s):  
Yuriy Voloshyn
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social History ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Geographical Origin ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Wage System ◽  
Social Affiliations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
Age Structures

Despite the advancements in the study of early modern Ukraine during the last decade, social history of the Cossack Hetmanate still remains scarcely explored. In particular, the study of cities in the Cossack’s autonomy and of social groups specific to city areas still remains outside scholarly attention. This article addresses one of these social groups—servants who constituted the largest group in the Hetmanate cities, such as in Poltava city located in Central Ukraine. This article provides an account on sex and age structures, social affiliations, geographical origin, and wage system of this social group in Poltava. The sources comprise of the data from Rumyantsev Register (1765–1769) and confession records (1775).

‘Truth Never Needed the Protection of Forgery’: Sainthood and Miracles in Robert Hegge’s ‘History of St. Cuthbert’s Churches at Lindisfarne, Cuncacestre, and Dunholme’ (1625)

2011 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 270-283
Author(s):  
Sarah Scutts
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Religious Polemic ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Church

Robert Hegge’s ‘History of St. Cuthbert’s Churches at Lindisfarne, Cuncacestre, and Dunholme’ was one of many texts produced in the early modern period which portrayed and assessed the Anglo-Saxon Church and its saints. This Protestant antiquarian work fits into a wider tradition in which the medieval past was studied, evaluated and employed in religious polemic. The pre-Reformation Church often played a dual role; as Helen Parish has shown, the institution simultaneously provided Protestant writers with historical proof of Catholicism’s league with the Antichrist, while also offering an outlet through which to trace proto-Protestant resistance, and thereby provide the reformed faith with a past. The Anglo-Saxon era was especially significant in religious polemic; during this time scholars could find documented evidence of England’s successful conversion to Christianity when Pope Gregory the Great sent his missionary, Augustine, to Canterbury. The See of Rome’s irrefutable involvement in the propagation of the faith provided Catholic scholars with compelling evidence which not only proved their Church’s prolonged existence in the land, but also offered historic precedent for England’s subordination to Rome. In contrast, reformed writers engaged in an uneasy relationship with the period. Preferring to locate the nation’s Christian origins in apostolic times, they typically interpreted Gregory’s conversion mission as marking the moment at which Catholic vice began to creep into the land and lay waste to a pure primitive proto-Protestant faith. In order to legitimize the establishment of the Church of England, Catholicism’s English foundations needed to be challenged. Reformers increasingly placed emphasis upon the existence of a proto-Protestant ‘strand’ that predated, but continued to exist within, the Anglo-Saxon Church. Until the Norman Conquest, this Church gradually fell prey to Rome’s encroaching corruption, and enjoyed only a marginal existence prior to the Henrician Reformation in the 1530s. Thus Protestants had a fraught and often ambiguous relationship with the Anglo-Saxon past; they simultaneously sought to trace their own ancestry within it while exposing its many vices. This paper seeks to address one such vice, which was the subject of a principal criticism levied by reformers against their Catholic adversaries: the unfounded creation and veneration of saints. Protestants considered the degree of significance the medieval cult of saints had attached to venerating such individuals as a form of idolatry, and, consequently, the topic found its way into countless Reformation works. However, as this essay argues, reformed attitudes towards sainthood could often be ambivalent. Texts such as Hegge’s prove to be extremely revealing of such ambiguous attitudes: his own relationship with the saints Cuthbert, Oswald and Bede appears indistinct and, in numerous instances, his understanding of sanctity was somewhat contradictory.

scholarly journals A LIFETIME PORTRAIT OF TSAR IVAN THE TERRIBLE: THE VISUALIZATION OF A FADED MONUMENT BY NATURAL SCIENCE METHODS

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Е. Уханова ◽  
М. Жижин ◽  
А. Андреев ◽  
А. Пойда ◽  
В. Ильин
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Computer Processing ◽  
The State ◽  
Science Methods ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western European ◽  
European Standards ◽  
Ivan The Terrible ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Made In

The collections of the State Historical Museum keep a single offering copy of the first-printed Apostle 1564 by Ivan Fedorov with the image of the tsar Ivan the Terrible. This portrait was made in the embossing technique on the cover of the binding and is now almost completely extinct. This extinguished image was investigated using multispectral macro photography and subsequent computer processing. It has allowed visualizing the tsar portrait. This image is the only lifetime portrait of the most famous ruler of Russia, which survived to our time. Embossing specifics on the cover of the binding suggests the use of engraving on metal for the manufacture of this image. This is one of the first example of this technique in Russia. The features of the portrait and the embossing of both covers of the binding corresponded to the Western European standards for the design of an elite book, which came to Russia along with typography. The portrait of the king on the chest of a heraldic eagle accompanied by his titles served as a representation of the royal status of Ivan IV, that had been recognized by the Oriental patriarchs for three years before. A review of the existing portraits of Ivan the Terrible led to the conclusion that the resulting image was the only lifetime portrait of the king, which has close correspondences with the reconstruction of his face on the skull, made by M. M. Gerasimov. The history of the existence of a royal copy of Apostol of 1564 from the moment of its creation to the present day is reconstructed in the article.

scholarly journals MALE MONASTERIES OF THE EPARCHY OF LVIV IN EARLY MODERN SOCIETY: RELIGIOUS ASPECT

2021 ◽  
pp. 67-84
Author(s):  
Andriy Pavlyshyn
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Local Environment ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Family Ties ◽  
Religious Consciousness ◽  
History Of ◽  
Monastic Communities

Summary. The purpose of the research is to find out aspects of the religious function of male monastic communities of the Eparchy of Lviv (Orthodox and Union) in the local environment at the end of the XVI ‒ first quarter of the XVIII century. The methodology of the research is based on the principles of historicism, interdisciplinarity. Methods inherent for the study history of local social groups are used. The scientific novelty is in an attempt to study the religious function of monasteries in the Eparchy of Lviv, with the involvement of little-known and unpublished sources. Conclusions: among the most important aspects of religious activity of the monasteries of the Eparchy of Lviv was pastoral work, which was uncommon during the period under study. The pastorate of monks in parishes was initiated by church hierarchs or the founders of the parish, less often by the parishioners themselves. An important religious function of monastic communities was funeral services, which were held in monasteries at the request of the faithful inscribed in commemoration books. On the example of Pidhorodyshche monastery commemoration book, it can be stated that small monasteries were popular mainly with peasants or clergy from nearby settlements, to a lesser extent with burghers or gentry. The important role of monasticism in the religious consciousness of various classes of early modern society is confirmed by testamentary gifts in wills for monasteries. The personal religiosity of specific individuals played a significant role in their making. The nobility and burghers often chose monasteries as the place of their burial. Both family ties to monasteries and personal religiosity were decisive in this choice. An important place in the religious consciousness of the society of that time played the celebration in the honour of the monastery patron with the representatives of all classes of the society of that time taking part in it.

An Early Jesuit Encounter with the Qur’an

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Paul Shore
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
European Language ◽  
Intended Audience ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western European

The manuscipt Animadversiones, Notae ac Disputationes in Pestilentem Alcoranum is an almost entirely unknown translation of the Qur'an into baroque Latin completed by the Jesuit priest Ignazio Lomellini in 1622, of which only one copy exists. It is accompanied by extensive commentaries and includes a complete text of the Qur’an in Arabic and numerous marginalia. It is, therefore, one of the earliest complete translations of the Qur’an into a western European language and a crucial document of the encounter between western Christianity and Islam in the early modern period. This essay examines Lomellini’s understanding of Arabic and, specifically, of the cultural and religious underpinnings of Qur’anic Arabic. Special attention is given to his lexical choices. This essay also deals with the document’s intended audience, the resources upon which he drew (including the library of his patron, Cardinal Alessandro Orsini), and the manuscript’s relationship to the Jesuits’ broader literary and missionary efforts. Finally, it asks why scholars, particularly those who study the history of the Jesuits, have ignored this manuscript and its author.

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