Anglican Enlightenment: Orientalism, Religion and Politics in England and Its Empire, 1648-1715

ISBN-13: 9781107073685 / Angielski / Twarda / 2015 / 357 str.

William Bulman

Opis

This is an original interpretation of the early European Enlightenment and the religious conflicts that rocked England and its empire under the later Stuarts. In a series of vignettes that move between Europe and North Africa, William J. Bulman shows that this period witnessed not a struggle for and against new ideas and greater freedoms, but a battle between several novel schemes for civil peace. Bulman considers anew the most apparently conservative force in post-Civil War English history: the conformist leadership of the Church of England. He demonstrates that the church's historical scholarship, social science, pastoral care and political practice amounted not to a culturally backward spectacle of intolerance, but to a campaign for stability drawn from the frontiers of erudition and globalization. In seeking to sever the link between zeal and chaos, the church and its enemies were thus united in an Enlightenment project, but bitterly divided over what it meant in practice.

Recenzje

'This is an important and thought-provoking book which deserves to be taken seriously by scholars … This book joins those by Grant Tapsell and Brent Sirota in making the case for the period as one which was marked by intellectual and religious vitality and cannot be ignored by scholars.' William Gibson, The English Historical Review

Spis treści

Introduction: from learning to liberalism?; Part I. Foundations: 1. Literature and violence; 2. Empires, churches and republics of the globe; Part II. Culture: 3. Histories; 4. Universals; Part III. Religion: 5. The propagation of the faith; 6. The worship of God; Part IV. Politics: 7. Restoration; 8. Revolution; Conclusion: from pastor to spectator; Select bibliography; Index.