Following the lead of Natalie Zemon Davis, Mack Holt writes that the French “Wars of Religion” were truly religious wars, but then adds that “religion” has to be understood in a sixteenth century sense. He denies that “three generations of French men and women . . . . Continue Reading »
Having spent time among shamans and magicians in Nepal and Indonesia, David Abram ( The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World ) concluded that magicians are marginal figures, but in a different sense than is usually understood. Rather than standing at the . . . . Continue Reading »
What makes for better health and longer life expectancy in the advanced world in the last century? Not improvements in medicine, Illich argues. Rates of tuberculosis, scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough, and measles indicate that “nearly 90 percent of the total decline in . . . . Continue Reading »
Conservatives are today almost invariably defenders of capitalism. It was not always so. As Phillip Blond argues in Red Tory: How Left and Right Have Broken Britain and How We Can Fix it , “In the eighteenth century it was the Anglican Tory gentry who often defended the prosperity . . . . Continue Reading »
Nicholas Berdyaev argued that Russian Nihilism was traceable to Orthodoxy: “if could appear only in a soul which was cast in an Orthodox mold. It was Orthodox asceticism turned inside out, and asceticism without Grace. At the base of Russian Nihilism, when grasped in its purity . . . . Continue Reading »
There’s a great deal to like in the work of Nicholas of Cusa, but William Cavanaugh ( The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict ) places him at the beginning of an unfortunate genealogy that develops into the modern conception of religion as a generic . . . . Continue Reading »
Paul Veyne ( When Our World Became Christian ) notes the radical difference between paganism and Christianity (which is calls a “masterpiece” and compares to a “best-seller” that revealed a “thitherto unsuspected sensibility”): “Augustus, following his . . . . Continue Reading »
Jonathan Rowe has provided a couple of interesting discussions (one, two) regarding the founding of the United States and the problem of slavery. Even so, a couple statements seem problematic and pursuing them might be valuable as a defense:And Christianity, properly understood, is entirely . . . . Continue Reading »
Jonathan Israel ( A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy ) distinguishes between a “radical” and “moderate” Enlightenment, locating the main difference in metaphysics rather than national setting or politics: . . . . Continue Reading »
In his The Opening of Vision: Nihilism and the Postmodern Situation , David Levin briefly traces the line from humanism to 20th-century terror. Early moderns developed a vision “derived from an egological and essentially anthropocentric vision of reason: reason as instrumental, . . . . Continue Reading »
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