Presents evidence that Dutch commerce, not religion, inspired the rise of science in the 16th and 17th centuries. Scrutinises many historical documents relating to the study of medicine and natural history during this era, showing direct links between commerce and trade, and the flourishing of scientific investigation.
In this wide-ranging and stimulating book, a leading authority on the history of medicine and science presents convincing evidence that Dutch commerce, not religion, inspired the rise of science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Harold Cook scrutinises a wealth of historical documents relating to the study of medicine and natural history in the Netherlands, Europe, Brazil, South Africa, and Asia during this era, and his conclusions are fresh and exciting. He uncovers direct links between the rise of trade and commerce in the Dutch Empire and the flourishing of scientific investigation. Cook argues that engaging in commerce changed the thinking of Dutch citizens, leading to a new emphasis on such values as objectivity, accumulation, and description. The preference for accurate information that accompanied the rise of commerce also laid the groundwork for the rise of science globally, wherever the Dutch engaged in trade. Medicine and natural history were fundamental aspects of this new science, as reflected in the development of gardens for both pleasure and botanical study, anatomical theatres, curiosity cabinets, and richly illustrated books about nature. Sweeping in scope and original in its insights, this book revises previous understandings of the history of science and ideas.
René Descartes is best known as the man who coined the phrase “I think, therefore I am.” But though he is remembered most as a thinker, Descartes, the man, was no disembodied mind, theorizing at great remove from the worldly affairs and concerns of his time. Far from it. As a young nobleman, Descartes was a soldier and courtier who took part in some of the greatest events of his generation—a man who would not seem out of place in the pages of The Three Musketeers. In The Young Descartes, Harold J. Cook tells the story of a man who did not set out to become an author or philosopher—Descartes began publishing only after the age of forty. Rather, for years he traveled throughout Europe in diplomacy and at war. He was present at the opening events of the Thirty Years' War in Central Europe and Northern Italy, and was also later involved in struggles within France. Enduring exile, scandals, and courtly intrigue, on his journeys Descartes associated with many of the most innovative free thinkers and poets of his day, as well as great noblemen, noblewomen, and charismatic religious reformers. In his personal life, he expressed love for men as well as women and was accused of libertinism by his adversaries. These early years on the move, in touch with powerful people and great events, and his experiences with military engineering and philosophical materialism all shaped the thinker and philosopher Descartes became in exile, where he would begin to write and publish, with purpose. But though it is these writings that made ultimately made him famous, The Young Descartes shows that this story of his early life and the tumultuous times that molded him is sure to spark a reappraisal of his philosophy and legacy.
In this provocative book, Richard Sennett looks at the ways today's global, ever-mutable form of capitalism is affecting our lives. He analyzes how changes in work ethic, in our attitudes toward merit and talent, and in public and private institutions have all contributed to what he terms 'the spectre of uselessness', and he concludes with suggestions to counter this disturbing new culture.
The Emancipation Proclamation is the most important document of arguably the greatest president in U.S. history. Now, Edna Greene Medford, Frank J. Williams, and Harold Holzer -- eminent experts in their fields -- remember, analyze, and interpret the Emancipation Proclamation in three distinct respects: the influence of and impact upon African Americans; the legal, political, and military exigencies; and the role pictorial images played in establishing the document in public memory. The result is a carefully balanced yet provocative study that views the proclamation and its author from the perspective of fellow Republicans, antiwar Democrats, the press, the military, the enslaved, free blacks, and the antislavery white establishment, as well as the artists, publishers, sculptors, and their patrons who sought to enshrine Abraham Lincoln and his decree of freedom in iconography. Medford places African Americans, the people most affected by Lincoln's edict, at the center of the drama rather than at the periphery, as previous studies have done. She argues that blacks interpreted the proclamation much more broadly than Lincoln intended it, and during the postwar years and into the twentieth century they became disillusioned by the broken promise of equality and the realities of discrimination, violence, and economic dependence. Williams points out the obstacles Lincoln overcame in finding a way to confiscate property -- enslaved humans -- without violating the Constitution. He suggests that the president solidified his reputation as a legal and political genius by issuing the proclamation as Commander-in-Chief, thus taking the property under the pretext of military necessity. Holzer explores how it was only after Lincoln's assassination that the Emancipation Proclamation became an acceptable subject for pictorial celebration. Even then, it was the image of the martyr-president as the great emancipator that resonated in public memory, while any reference to those African Americans most affected by the proclamation was stripped away. This multilayered treatment reveals that the proclamation remains a singularly brave and bold act -- brilliantly calculated to maintain the viability of the Union during wartime, deeply dependent on the enlightened voices of Lincoln's contemporaries, and owing a major debt in history to the image-makers who quickly and indelibly preserved it.
The Handbook of Religion and Health has become the seminal research text on religion, spirituality, and health, outlining a rational argument for the connection between religion and health. The Second Edition completely revises and updates the first edition. Its authors are physicians: a psychiatrist and geriatrician, a primary care physician, and a professor of nursing and specialist in mental health nursing. The Second Edition surveys the historical connections between religion and health and grapples with the distinction between the terms ''religion'' and ''spirituality'' in research and clinical practice. It reviews research on religion and mental health, as well as extensive research literature on the mind-body relationship, and develops a model to explain how religious involvement may impact physical health through the mind-body mechanisms. It also explores the direct relationships between religion and physical health, covering such topics as immune and endocrine function, heart disease, hypertension and stroke, neurological disorders, cancer, and infectious diseases; and examines the consequences of illness including chronic pain, disability, and quality of life. Finally, the Handbook reviews research methods and addresses applications to clinical practice. Theological perspectives are interwoven throughout the chapters. The Handbook is the most insightful and authoritative resource available to anyone who wants to understand the relationship between religion and health.
At this critical moment in our nation?s-and the world?s-history, we are called sharply but lovingly to think in new ways about our moral and political behavior by Harold Schulweis, one of America?s great spiritual leaders. Like the biblical prophets, he speaks to people of all faiths, all backgrounds in this call for renewal of conscience.?The urgent challenge for religion is to provide religious groups with the resources needed to resist immoral authority. Religion is morally obligated to instill the sanctity of conscience that may balance the culture of obedience with the culture of moral disobedience?. Organized religion appears unable to envision the interdependent coexistence of obedience and disobedience, a time to obey and a time to disobey.?A provocative book, it examines the idea of conscience and the role conscience plays in our relationship to law, ethics, religion, human nature and God-and to each other. From Abraham to Abu Ghraib, from the dissenting prophets to Darfur, he probes history, the Bible and the works of contemporary thinkers for ideas about both critical disobedience and uncritical obedience, illuminating the potential for evil and the potential for good that rests within us as individuals and as a society.
The new student edition of the definitive architectural reference For seventy-five years, Architectural Graphic Standards has been the go-to reference for architects, builders, and engineers. Revised for the first time since 2000, Architectural Graphic Standards, Student Edition gives students their own handy resource. Carefully abridged from the Eleventh Edition of Architectural Graphic Standards, this Student Edition features the same richly detailed graphics and text that have made Architectural Graphic Standards a classic, but updated and reorganized in a way that is relevant to today's student. Thousands of illustrations and a rich index offer immediate access to hundreds of architectural elements, while the wide variety of topics covered makes this work relevant throughout a student's architecture education and into the early stages of professional practice. With a wealth of information for the student preparing for professional practice, this new edition: * Covers building standards and practices, materials and systems, and details for every type of project * Follows CSI's Uniformat, a classification system that closely matches an architect's workflow * Features completely updated content with a wide variety of standard architectural details * Offers an ancillary Web site featuring sample curriculums, student exercises, classroom projects, PowerPoint(r) slides, and more
A comprehensive introduction to the nature of the self and its relation to the body, this title places the problem of personal identity in the context of more general puzzles about identity, and discusses the major related theories.
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