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Concealed Silences and Inaudible Voices in Political Thinking
by Michael FreedenConcealed Silences and Inaudible Voices in Political Thinking investigates silence as a normal, ubiquitous, and indispensable element of political thinking, theory, and language. It explores the diverse dimensions in which silences mould the different core features of the political, as a highly flexible power resource, both enabling and constraining major social practices, traditions, and currents. Departing from the typical focus on intentional silencing and the dominance of logos, the book instead highlights the concealed and unrecognized ways through which silence pervades socio-political life and adopts the guises of the unspeakable, the ineffable, the inarticulable, and the unconceptualizable. Drawing extensively from historical, philosophical, anthropological, psychoanalytical, theological, linguistic, and literary viewpoints, the book demonstrates the common threads that connect silences to those different disciplines, alongside the features that pull them asunder. In extracting and decoding their political implications, it explores both academic literature and colloquial, everyday discourse. Michael Freeden uses select case-studies to explore topics such as Buddhist nondualism, Locke's tacit consent, the submerging of historical narratives, state neutrality, Pinter's miscommunications and menace, and the separate ways ideologies integrate silence into their beliefs. The book offers an analysis of silence from a multi-perspectival range of disciplines, providing a comprehensive and holistic view of silence and the political.
Territorial Sovereignty: A Philosophical Exploration (Oxford Political Theory)
by Anna StilzTerritorial Sovereignty: A Philosophical Exploration offers a qualified defense of a territorial states-system. It argues that three core values-occupancy, basic justice, and collective self-determination-are served by an international system made up of self-governing, spatially defined political units. The defense is qualified because the book does not actually justify all the sovereignty rights states currently claim, and that are recognized in international law. Instead, the book proposes important changes to states' sovereign prerogatives, particularly with respect to internal autonomy for political minorities, immigration, and natural resources. Part I of the book argues for a right of occupancy, holding that a legitimate function of the international system is to specify and protect people's preinstitutional claims to specific geographical places. Part II turns to the question of how a state might acquire legitimate jurisdiction over a population of occupants. It argues that the state will have a right to rule a population and its territory if it satisfies conditions of basic justice and also facilitates its people's collective self-determination. Finally, Parts III and IV of this book argue that the exclusionary sovereignty rights to control over borders and natural resources that can plausibly be justified on the basis of the three core values are more limited than has traditionally been thought. Oxford Political Theory presents the best new work in contemporary political theory. It is intended to be broad in scope, including original contributions to political philosophy, and also work in applied political theory. The series will contain works of outstanding quality with no restriction as to approach or subject matter. Series Editors: Will Kymlicka and David Miller.
Territorial Sovereignty: A Philosophical Exploration (Oxford Political Theory)
by Anna StilzTerritorial Sovereignty: A Philosophical Exploration offers a qualified defense of a territorial states-system. It argues that three core values-occupancy, basic justice, and collective self-determination-are served by an international system made up of self-governing, spatially defined political units. The defense is qualified because the book does not actually justify all the sovereignty rights states currently claim, and that are recognized in international law. Instead, the book proposes important changes to states' sovereign prerogatives, particularly with respect to internal autonomy for political minorities, immigration, and natural resources. Part I of the book argues for a right of occupancy, holding that a legitimate function of the international system is to specify and protect people's preinstitutional claims to specific geographical places. Part II turns to the question of how a state might acquire legitimate jurisdiction over a population of occupants. It argues that the state will have a right to rule a population and its territory if it satisfies conditions of basic justice and also facilitates its people's collective self-determination. Finally, Parts III and IV of this book argue that the exclusionary sovereignty rights to control over borders and natural resources that can plausibly be justified on the basis of the three core values are more limited than has traditionally been thought. Oxford Political Theory presents the best new work in contemporary political theory. It is intended to be broad in scope, including original contributions to political philosophy, and also work in applied political theory. The series will contain works of outstanding quality with no restriction as to approach or subject matter. Series Editors: Will Kymlicka and David Miller.
Strategies of Justice: Aboriginal Peoples, Persistent Injustice, and the Ethics of Political Action (Oxford Political Theory)
by Burke A. HendrixPolitical theorists often imagine themselves as political architects, asking what an ideal set of laws or social structures might look like. Yet persistent injustices can endure for decades or even centuries despite such ideal theorizing. In circumstances of this kind, it is essential for political theorists to think carefully about the political choices available to those who directly face such injustices and seek to change them. This book focuses on the claims of Aboriginal peoples to better treatment from the United States and Canada. Though other groups face similarly persistent injustices (e.g. African Americans in the United States), the specific details of injustice matter a great deal for its analysis. The book focuses on two intertwined issues: the kinds of moral permissions that those facing persistent injustice have when they act politically, and the kinds of transformations that political action may bring about in those who undertake it. The book argues for normative permissions to speak untruth to power; to circumvent or nullify existing law; to give primary attention to protecting one's own community first; and to engage in political experimentation that reshapes future generations. When carefully used, the book argues, these permissions may help political actors to avoid co-optation and self-delusion. At the same time, divisions of labor between those who grapple most closely with state institutions and those who keep their distance may be necessary to facilitate escape from persistent injustice over the long term. Oxford Political Theory presents the best new work in contemporary political theory. It is intended to be broad in scope, including original contributions to political philosophy, and also work in applied political theory. The series will contain works of outstanding quality with no restriction as to approach or subject matter. Series Editors: Will Kymlicka and David Miller.
Strategies of Justice: Aboriginal Peoples, Persistent Injustice, and the Ethics of Political Action (Oxford Political Theory)
by Burke A. HendrixPolitical theorists often imagine themselves as political architects, asking what an ideal set of laws or social structures might look like. Yet persistent injustices can endure for decades or even centuries despite such ideal theorizing. In circumstances of this kind, it is essential for political theorists to think carefully about the political choices available to those who directly face such injustices and seek to change them. This book focuses on the claims of Aboriginal peoples to better treatment from the United States and Canada. Though other groups face similarly persistent injustices (e.g. African Americans in the United States), the specific details of injustice matter a great deal for its analysis. The book focuses on two intertwined issues: the kinds of moral permissions that those facing persistent injustice have when they act politically, and the kinds of transformations that political action may bring about in those who undertake it. The book argues for normative permissions to speak untruth to power; to circumvent or nullify existing law; to give primary attention to protecting one's own community first; and to engage in political experimentation that reshapes future generations. When carefully used, the book argues, these permissions may help political actors to avoid co-optation and self-delusion. At the same time, divisions of labor between those who grapple most closely with state institutions and those who keep their distance may be necessary to facilitate escape from persistent injustice over the long term. Oxford Political Theory presents the best new work in contemporary political theory. It is intended to be broad in scope, including original contributions to political philosophy, and also work in applied political theory. The series will contain works of outstanding quality with no restriction as to approach or subject matter. Series Editors: Will Kymlicka and David Miller.
The Oxford Handbook of Danish Politics (Oxford Handbooks)
The Oxford Handbook of Danish Politics provides the most comprehensive and thorough English language book on Danish politics ever written. It features chapters by 50 leading experts who have contributed extensively to the field they write about. Why is Denmark an interesting topic for a Handbook? In some respects, Danish political institutions and political life are very similar to that of other small, North European countries such as the other Scandinavian countries and Netherland. However, in other respects, Danish politics is interesting in its own right. For instance, Denmark has a world record in minority governments. According to standard scholarly knowledge, this should result in unstable governments and a bad economy. This is not the case, however, since Denmark has a rather stable political system and a strong and robust economy among the strongest in Europe. How? The Danes have continued reservations towards the EU despite close to 50 years of EC/EU membership, and the Danes rejected the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. Still, the EU issue is handled in ways that do not call for large political battles. How? A third example is that Denmark used to be known as a tolerant and liberal society; its Jews were almost all saved during German occupation during WWII, Denmark was the first country to free pornography, and the first country to formally register same-sex couples. Yet recent Danish politics has also been associated with xenophobia and anti-Muslim sentiments. Why?
The Oxford Handbook of Danish Politics (Oxford Handbooks)
by Peter Nedergaard Peter Munk Christiansen Jørgen ElklitThe Oxford Handbook of Danish Politics provides the most comprehensive and thorough English language book on Danish politics ever written. It features chapters by 50 leading experts who have contributed extensively to the field they write about. Why is Denmark an interesting topic for a Handbook? In some respects, Danish political institutions and political life are very similar to that of other small, North European countries such as the other Scandinavian countries and Netherland. However, in other respects, Danish politics is interesting in its own right. For instance, Denmark has a world record in minority governments. According to standard scholarly knowledge, this should result in unstable governments and a bad economy. This is not the case, however, since Denmark has a rather stable political system and a strong and robust economy among the strongest in Europe. How? The Danes have continued reservations towards the EU despite close to 50 years of EC/EU membership, and the Danes rejected the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. Still, the EU issue is handled in ways that do not call for large political battles. How? A third example is that Denmark used to be known as a tolerant and liberal society; its Jews were almost all saved during German occupation during WWII, Denmark was the first country to free pornography, and the first country to formally register same-sex couples. Yet recent Danish politics has also been associated with xenophobia and anti-Muslim sentiments. Why?
Going to the Palais: A Social And Cultural History of Dancing and Dance Halls in Britain, 1918-1960
by James NottFrom the mid-1920s, the dance hall occupied a pivotal place in the culture of working- and lower-middle-class communities in Britain - a place rivalled only by the cinema and eventually to eclipse even that institution in popularity. Going to the Palais examines the history of this vital social and cultural institution, exploring the dances, dancers, and dance venues that were at the heart of one of twentieth-century Britain's most significant leisure activities. Going to the Palais has several key focuses. First, it explores the expansion of the dance hall industry and the development of a 'mass audience' for dancing between 1918 and 1960. Second, the impact of these changes on individuals and communities is examined, with a particular concentration on working and lower-middle-class communities, and on young men and women. Third, the cultural impact of dancing and dance halls is explored. A key aspect of this debate is an examination of how Britain's dance culture held up against various standardizing processes (for example, commercialization, Americanization) over the period, and whether we can see the emergence of a 'national' dance culture. Finally, the volume offers an assessment of wider reactions to dance halls and dancing in the period. Going to the Palais is concerned with the complex relationship between discourses of class, culture, gender, and national identity and how they overlap - how cultural change, itself a response to broader political, social, and economic developments, was helping to change notions of class, gender, and national identity.
Democracy, Capitalism, and the Welfare State: Debating Social Order in Postwar West Germany, 1949-1989
by Peter C. CaldwellDemocracy, Capitalism, and the Welfare State investigates political thought under the conditions of the postwar welfare state, focusing on the Federal Republic of Germany (1949-1989). The volume argues that the welfare state informed and altered basic questions of democracy and its relationship to capitalism. These questions were especially important for West Germany, given its recent experience with the collapse of capitalism, the disintegration of democracy, and National Socialist dictatorship after 1930. Three central issues emerged. First, the development of a nearly all-embracing set of social services and payments recast the problem of how social groups and interests related to the state, as state agencies and affected groups generated their own clientele, their own advocacy groups, and their own expert information. Second, the welfare state blurred the line between state and society that is constitutive of basic rights and the classic world of liberal freedom; rights became claims on the state, and social groups became integral parts of state administration. Third, the welfare state potentially reshaped the individual citizen, who became wrapped up with mandatory social insurance systems, provisioning of money and services related to social needs, and the regulation of everyday life. Peter C. Caldwell describes how West German experts sought to make sense of this vast array of state programs, expenditures, and bureaucracies aimed at solving social problems. Coming from backgrounds in politics, economics, law, social policy, sociology, and philosophy, they sought to conceptualize their state, which was now social (one German word for the welfare state is indeed Sozialstaat), and their society, which was permeated by state policies.
Democracy, Capitalism, and the Welfare State: Debating Social Order in Postwar West Germany, 1949-1989
by Peter C. CaldwellDemocracy, Capitalism, and the Welfare State investigates political thought under the conditions of the postwar welfare state, focusing on the Federal Republic of Germany (1949-1989). The volume argues that the welfare state informed and altered basic questions of democracy and its relationship to capitalism. These questions were especially important for West Germany, given its recent experience with the collapse of capitalism, the disintegration of democracy, and National Socialist dictatorship after 1930. Three central issues emerged. First, the development of a nearly all-embracing set of social services and payments recast the problem of how social groups and interests related to the state, as state agencies and affected groups generated their own clientele, their own advocacy groups, and their own expert information. Second, the welfare state blurred the line between state and society that is constitutive of basic rights and the classic world of liberal freedom; rights became claims on the state, and social groups became integral parts of state administration. Third, the welfare state potentially reshaped the individual citizen, who became wrapped up with mandatory social insurance systems, provisioning of money and services related to social needs, and the regulation of everyday life. Peter C. Caldwell describes how West German experts sought to make sense of this vast array of state programs, expenditures, and bureaucracies aimed at solving social problems. Coming from backgrounds in politics, economics, law, social policy, sociology, and philosophy, they sought to conceptualize their state, which was now social (one German word for the welfare state is indeed Sozialstaat), and their society, which was permeated by state policies.
Beyond the Barricades: Government and State-Building in Post-Revolutionary Prussia, 1848-1858
by Anna RossBeyond the Barricades is an original study of government after the 1848 revolutions. It focuses on the state of Prussia, where a number of conservative ministers sought to learn lessons from their experiences of upheaval and introduce a wave of reform in the 1850s. Using extensive archival research, the work explores Prussia's entry into the constitutional age, charting initiatives to transform criminal justice, agriculture, industry, communications, urban life, and the press. Reform strengthened contact with the Prussian population, making this a classic episode of state-building, but Beyond the Barricades seeks to go further. It makes a case for taking notice of government activity at this particular juncture because the measures endorsed by conservative statesmen in the 1850s sought to remove the feudal intermediaries that had lingered long into the nineteenth century and replace them with an array of government institutions, legal regimes, and official practices. In sum, this book recasts the post-revolutionary decade as a period which saw the transition from an old to a new world, pivotal to the making of modern Prussia and ultimately, modern Germany.
Beyond the Barricades: Government and State-Building in Post-Revolutionary Prussia, 1848-1858
by Anna RossBeyond the Barricades is an original study of government after the 1848 revolutions. It focuses on the state of Prussia, where a number of conservative ministers sought to learn lessons from their experiences of upheaval and introduce a wave of reform in the 1850s. Using extensive archival research, the work explores Prussia's entry into the constitutional age, charting initiatives to transform criminal justice, agriculture, industry, communications, urban life, and the press. Reform strengthened contact with the Prussian population, making this a classic episode of state-building, but Beyond the Barricades seeks to go further. It makes a case for taking notice of government activity at this particular juncture because the measures endorsed by conservative statesmen in the 1850s sought to remove the feudal intermediaries that had lingered long into the nineteenth century and replace them with an array of government institutions, legal regimes, and official practices. In sum, this book recasts the post-revolutionary decade as a period which saw the transition from an old to a new world, pivotal to the making of modern Prussia and ultimately, modern Germany.
Illiterate Inmates: Educating Criminals in Nineteenth Century England
by Rosalind CroneThe nineteenth-century prison, we have been told, was a place of 'hard labour, hard board, and hard fare'. Yet it was also a place of education. Schemes to teach prisoners to read and write, and sometimes more besides, can be traced to the early 1800s. State-funded elementary education for prisoners pre-dated universal and compulsory education for children by fifty years. In the 1860s, when the famous maxim, just cited, became the basis of national penal policy, arithmetic was included by legislators alongside reading and writing as a core skill to be taught in English prisons. By c.1880 every prison in England used to accommodate those convicted of criminal offences had a formal education programme in which the 3Rs - reading, writing, and arithmetic - were taught, to males and females, adults and children alike. Not every programme, however, had prisoners enrolled in it. Illiterate Inmates tells the story of the emergence, at the turn of the nineteenth century, of a powerful idea - the provision of education in prisons for those accused and convicted of crime - and its execution over the century that followed. Using evidence from both local and convict prisons, the study shows how education became part of the modern penal regime. While the curriculum largely reflected that of mainstream elementary schools, the delivery of education, shaped by the penal environment, created an entirely different educational experience. At the same time, philosophies of imprisonment which prioritised punishment and deterrence over reformation undermined any socially reconstructive ambitions. Thus the period between 1800 and 1899 witnessed the rise and fall of the prison school in England.
Illiterate Inmates: Educating Criminals in Nineteenth Century England
by Rosalind CroneThe nineteenth-century prison, we have been told, was a place of 'hard labour, hard board, and hard fare'. Yet it was also a place of education. Schemes to teach prisoners to read and write, and sometimes more besides, can be traced to the early 1800s. State-funded elementary education for prisoners pre-dated universal and compulsory education for children by fifty years. In the 1860s, when the famous maxim, just cited, became the basis of national penal policy, arithmetic was included by legislators alongside reading and writing as a core skill to be taught in English prisons. By c.1880 every prison in England used to accommodate those convicted of criminal offences had a formal education programme in which the 3Rs - reading, writing, and arithmetic - were taught, to males and females, adults and children alike. Not every programme, however, had prisoners enrolled in it. Illiterate Inmates tells the story of the emergence, at the turn of the nineteenth century, of a powerful idea - the provision of education in prisons for those accused and convicted of crime - and its execution over the century that followed. Using evidence from both local and convict prisons, the study shows how education became part of the modern penal regime. While the curriculum largely reflected that of mainstream elementary schools, the delivery of education, shaped by the penal environment, created an entirely different educational experience. At the same time, philosophies of imprisonment which prioritised punishment and deterrence over reformation undermined any socially reconstructive ambitions. Thus the period between 1800 and 1899 witnessed the rise and fall of the prison school in England.
Theodor W. Adorno: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
by Andrew BowieVery Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring T.W. Adorno (1903-69) was a German philosopher and social and cultural theorist. His work has come to be seen as increasingly relevant to understanding the pathologies of contemporary society evident in today's climate emergency, the financial crash, the reappearance of fascism in many countries, and the growing instability of the world order. This Very Short Introduction covers Adorno's work and life, explaining his key philosophical concepts and the philosophical background and historical context of Adorno's thinking. Andrew Bowie shows how Adorno's exploration of why human reason can have irrational consequences led him to rethink basic concepts like 'nature', 'history', and 'freedom', offering alternatives to many ways of thinking about these concepts in contemporary philosophy. The book also examines Adorno's social theory, as well as his highly critical assessments of jazz and modern culture, which he considered threatened by the effects of modern capitalism. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Theodor W. Adorno: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
by Andrew BowieVery Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring T.W. Adorno (1903-69) was a German philosopher and social and cultural theorist. His work has come to be seen as increasingly relevant to understanding the pathologies of contemporary society evident in today's climate emergency, the financial crash, the reappearance of fascism in many countries, and the growing instability of the world order. This Very Short Introduction covers Adorno's work and life, explaining his key philosophical concepts and the philosophical background and historical context of Adorno's thinking. Andrew Bowie shows how Adorno's exploration of why human reason can have irrational consequences led him to rethink basic concepts like 'nature', 'history', and 'freedom', offering alternatives to many ways of thinking about these concepts in contemporary philosophy. The book also examines Adorno's social theory, as well as his highly critical assessments of jazz and modern culture, which he considered threatened by the effects of modern capitalism. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Acrobatic Modernism from the Avant-Garde to Prehistory
by Jed RasulaThis is a book about artistic modernism contending with the historical transfigurations of modernity. As a conscientious engagement with modernity's restructuring of the lifeworld, the modernist avant-garde raised the stakes of this engagement to programmatic explicitness. But even beyond the vanguard, the global phenomenon of jazz combined somatic assault with sensory tutelage. Jazz, like the new technologies of modernity, re-calibrated sensory ratios. The criterion of the new as self-making also extended to names: pseudonyms and heteronyms. The protocols of modernism solicited a pragmatic arousal of bodily sensation as artistic resource, validating an acrobatic sensibility ranging from slapstick and laughter to the pathos of bereavement. Expressivity trumped representation. The artwork was a diagram of perception, not a mimetic rendering. For artists, the historical pressures of altered perception provoked new models, and Ezra Pound's slogan 'Make It New' became the generic rallying cry of renovation. The paradigmatic stance of the avant-garde was established by Futurism, but the discovery of prehistoric art added another provocation to artists. Paleolithic caves validated the spirit of all-over composition, unframed and dynamic. Geometric abstraction, Constructivism and Purism, and Surrealism were all in quest of a new mythology. Making it new yielded a new pathos in the sensation of radical discrepancy between futurist striving and remotest antiquity. The Paleolithic cave and the USSR emitted comparable siren calls on behalf of the remote past and the desired future. As such, the present was suffused with the pathos of being neither, but subject to both.
Acrobatic Modernism from the Avant-Garde to Prehistory
by Jed RasulaThis is a book about artistic modernism contending with the historical transfigurations of modernity. As a conscientious engagement with modernity's restructuring of the lifeworld, the modernist avant-garde raised the stakes of this engagement to programmatic explicitness. But even beyond the vanguard, the global phenomenon of jazz combined somatic assault with sensory tutelage. Jazz, like the new technologies of modernity, re-calibrated sensory ratios. The criterion of the new as self-making also extended to names: pseudonyms and heteronyms. The protocols of modernism solicited a pragmatic arousal of bodily sensation as artistic resource, validating an acrobatic sensibility ranging from slapstick and laughter to the pathos of bereavement. Expressivity trumped representation. The artwork was a diagram of perception, not a mimetic rendering. For artists, the historical pressures of altered perception provoked new models, and Ezra Pound's slogan 'Make It New' became the generic rallying cry of renovation. The paradigmatic stance of the avant-garde was established by Futurism, but the discovery of prehistoric art added another provocation to artists. Paleolithic caves validated the spirit of all-over composition, unframed and dynamic. Geometric abstraction, Constructivism and Purism, and Surrealism were all in quest of a new mythology. Making it new yielded a new pathos in the sensation of radical discrepancy between futurist striving and remotest antiquity. The Paleolithic cave and the USSR emitted comparable siren calls on behalf of the remote past and the desired future. As such, the present was suffused with the pathos of being neither, but subject to both.
The Death of the French Atlantic: Trade, War, and Slavery in the Age of Revolution
by Alan ForrestThe Death of the French Atlantic examines the sudden and irreversible decline of France's Atlantic empire in the Age of Revolution, and shows how three major forces undermined the country's competitive position as an Atlantic commercial power. The first was war, especially war at sea against France's most consistent enemy and commercial rival in the eighteenth century, Great Britain. A series of colonial wars, from the Seven Years' War and the War of American Independence to the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars did much to drive France out of the North Atlantic. The second was anti-slavery and the rise of a new moral conscience which challenged the right of Europeans to own slaves or to sacrifice the freedom of others to pursue national economic advantage. The third was the French Revolution itself, which not only raised French hopes of achieving the Rights of Man for its own citizens but also sowed the seeds of insurrection in the slave societies of the New World, leading to the loss of Saint-Domingue and the creation of the first black republic in Haiti at the beginning of the nineteenth century. This proved critical to the economy of the French Caribbean, driving both colons and slaves from Saint-Domingue to seek shelter across the Atlantic world, and leaving a bitter legacy in the French Caribbean. It has also created an uneasy memory of the slave trade in French ports like Nantes, La Rochelle, and Bordeaux, and has left an indelible mark on race relations in France today.
Wannsee: The Road to the Final Solution
by Peter LongerichThe complete story of the Wannsee Conference, the meeting that paved the way for the Holocaust. On 20 January 1942, fifteen men arrived for a meeting in a luxurious villa on the shores of the Wannsee in the far-western outskirts of Berlin. They came at the invitation of Reinhard Heydrich and were almost all high-ranking Nazi Party, government, and SS officials. The exquisite position by the lake, the imposing driveway up to the villa, culminating in a generously sized roundabout in front of the house, the expansive, carefully landscaped park, the generous suite of rooms that opened on to the park and the lake, the three-level terrace that stretched the entire garden side of the house, and the winter garden with its marble fountain, all give today's visitor to the villa a good idea of its owner's aspiration to build a sophisticated, almost palatial structure as a testament to his cultivation and worldly success. But the beauty of the situation stood in stark contrast to the purpose of the meeting to which the fifteen had come in January 1942: the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question'. According to the surviving records of the meeting, items on the agenda included the precise definition of exactly which group of people was to be affected, followed by a discussion of how upwards of eleven million people were to be deported and subjected to the toughest form of forced labour, and following on from this a discussion of how the survivors of this forced labour as well as those not capable of it were ultimately to be killed. The next item on the agenda was breakfast.
Wannsee: The Road to the Final Solution
by Peter LongerichThe complete story of the Wannsee Conference, the meeting that paved the way for the Holocaust. On 20 January 1942, fifteen men arrived for a meeting in a luxurious villa on the shores of the Wannsee in the far-western outskirts of Berlin. They came at the invitation of Reinhard Heydrich and were almost all high-ranking Nazi Party, government, and SS officials. The exquisite position by the lake, the imposing driveway up to the villa, culminating in a generously sized roundabout in front of the house, the expansive, carefully landscaped park, the generous suite of rooms that opened on to the park and the lake, the three-level terrace that stretched the entire garden side of the house, and the winter garden with its marble fountain, all give today's visitor to the villa a good idea of its owner's aspiration to build a sophisticated, almost palatial structure as a testament to his cultivation and worldly success. But the beauty of the situation stood in stark contrast to the purpose of the meeting to which the fifteen had come in January 1942: the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question'. According to the surviving records of the meeting, items on the agenda included the precise definition of exactly which group of people was to be affected, followed by a discussion of how upwards of eleven million people were to be deported and subjected to the toughest form of forced labour, and following on from this a discussion of how the survivors of this forced labour as well as those not capable of it were ultimately to be killed. The next item on the agenda was breakfast.
Experiencing God in Late Medieval and Early Modern England
by David J. DavisExperiencing God in Late Medieval and Early Modern England demonstrates that experiences of divine revelation, both biblical and contemporary, were central to late medieval and early modern English religion. The book sheds light on previously under-explored notions about divine revelation and the role these notions played in shaping large portions of English thought and belief. Bringing together a wide variety of source materials, from contemplative works and accounts of revelatory experiences to biblical commentaries, devotionals, and religious imagery, David J. Davis argues that in the period there was a collective representation of divine revelation as a source of human knowledge, which transcended other religious and intellectual divisions. Not only did most people think that divine revelation, through a ravishing encounter with God, was possible, but also divine revelation was understood to be the pinnacle of religious experience and a source of pure understanding. The book highlights a common discourse running through the sources that underpinned this collective representation of how human beings experienced the divine, and it demonstrates a continual effort across large swathes of English religion to prepare an individual's soul for an encounter with the divine, through different spiritual disciplines and devotional practices. Over a period of several centuries this discourse and the larger culture of revelation provided an essential structure and legitimacy both to contemporary claims of divine revelation and the biblical precedents that contemporary experiences were modelled after. This discourse detailed the physical, metaphysical, and epistemological features of how a human being was understood to experience divine revelation, providing a means to delimit and define what happened when an individual was rapture by God. Finally, the book situates the experience of revelation within the wider context of knowledge and identifies the ways that claims to divine revelation were legitimated as well as stigmatized based on this common understanding of the experience of rapture.
Experiencing God in Late Medieval and Early Modern England
by David J. DavisExperiencing God in Late Medieval and Early Modern England demonstrates that experiences of divine revelation, both biblical and contemporary, were central to late medieval and early modern English religion. The book sheds light on previously under-explored notions about divine revelation and the role these notions played in shaping large portions of English thought and belief. Bringing together a wide variety of source materials, from contemplative works and accounts of revelatory experiences to biblical commentaries, devotionals, and religious imagery, David J. Davis argues that in the period there was a collective representation of divine revelation as a source of human knowledge, which transcended other religious and intellectual divisions. Not only did most people think that divine revelation, through a ravishing encounter with God, was possible, but also divine revelation was understood to be the pinnacle of religious experience and a source of pure understanding. The book highlights a common discourse running through the sources that underpinned this collective representation of how human beings experienced the divine, and it demonstrates a continual effort across large swathes of English religion to prepare an individual's soul for an encounter with the divine, through different spiritual disciplines and devotional practices. Over a period of several centuries this discourse and the larger culture of revelation provided an essential structure and legitimacy both to contemporary claims of divine revelation and the biblical precedents that contemporary experiences were modelled after. This discourse detailed the physical, metaphysical, and epistemological features of how a human being was understood to experience divine revelation, providing a means to delimit and define what happened when an individual was rapture by God. Finally, the book situates the experience of revelation within the wider context of knowledge and identifies the ways that claims to divine revelation were legitimated as well as stigmatized based on this common understanding of the experience of rapture.
At the Edge of Reformation: Iberia before the Black Death
by Peter LinehanAt the Edge of Reformation springs from Peter Linehan's continuing interest in the history of Spain and Portugal, on this occasion in the first half of the fourteenth century between the recovery of each kingdom from widespread anarchy and civil war and the onset of the Black Death. Focussing on ecclesiastical aspects of the period in that region (Galicia in particular) and secular attitudes to the privatisation of the church, it raises inter alios the question why developments there did not lead to a permanent sundering of the relationship with Rome (or Avignon) two centuries ahead of that outcome elsewhere in the West. In addressing such issues, as well as of neglected archival material in Spanish and Portuguese archives, Linehan makes use of the also unpublished so-called 'secret' registers of the popes of the period. The issues this volume raises ought to be of interest not only to students of Spanish and Portuguese society but also to those interested in the developing relationship further afield of the components of the eternal quadrilateral (pope, king, episcopate, and secular nobility) in late medieval Europe as well as of the activity in that period of the secular-minded sapientes. In this context, attention is given to the hitherto neglected attempt of Afonso IV of Portugal to appropriate the privileges of the primatial church of his kingdom and to the glorification of his Castilian son-in-law as God's vice-gerent in his.
At the Edge of Reformation: Iberia before the Black Death
by Peter LinehanAt the Edge of Reformation springs from Peter Linehan's continuing interest in the history of Spain and Portugal, on this occasion in the first half of the fourteenth century between the recovery of each kingdom from widespread anarchy and civil war and the onset of the Black Death. Focussing on ecclesiastical aspects of the period in that region (Galicia in particular) and secular attitudes to the privatisation of the church, it raises inter alios the question why developments there did not lead to a permanent sundering of the relationship with Rome (or Avignon) two centuries ahead of that outcome elsewhere in the West. In addressing such issues, as well as of neglected archival material in Spanish and Portuguese archives, Linehan makes use of the also unpublished so-called 'secret' registers of the popes of the period. The issues this volume raises ought to be of interest not only to students of Spanish and Portuguese society but also to those interested in the developing relationship further afield of the components of the eternal quadrilateral (pope, king, episcopate, and secular nobility) in late medieval Europe as well as of the activity in that period of the secular-minded sapientes. In this context, attention is given to the hitherto neglected attempt of Afonso IV of Portugal to appropriate the privileges of the primatial church of his kingdom and to the glorification of his Castilian son-in-law as God's vice-gerent in his.