A Usable Past

Essays in European Cultural History

By: William J. Bouwsma

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Paperback | 27 June 1990 | Edition Number 1

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460 Pages

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2.25 x 1.57 x 0.27

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The essays assembled here represent forty years of reflection about the European cultural past by an eminent historian. The volume concentrates on the Renaissance and Reformation, while providing a lens through which to view problems of perennial interest. A Usable Past is a book of unusual scope, touching on such topics as political thought and historiography, metaphysical and practical conceptions of order, the relevance of Renaissance humanism to Protestant thought, the secularization of European culture, the contributions of particular professional groups to European civilization, and the teaching of history.

The essays in A Usable Past are unified by a set of common concerns. William Bouwsma has always resisted the pretensions to science that have shaped much recent historical scholarship and made the work of historians increasingly specialized and inaccessible to lay readers. Following Friedrich Nietzsche, he argues that since history is a kind of public utility, historical research should contribute to the self-understanding of society.

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Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Polarities of Western Culture
The Two Faces of Humanism: Stoicism and Augustinianism in Renaissance Thought	p. 19
Changing Assumptions in Later Renaissance Culture	p. 74
The Venetian Interdict and the Problem of Order	p. 97
The Secularization of Society in the Seventeenth Century	p. 112
Lawyers and Early Modern Culture	p. 129
The Durable Renaissance
Anxiety and the Formation of Early Modern Culture	p. 157
The Politics of Commynes	p. 190
Postel and the Significance of Renaissance Cabalism	p. 209
Renaissance and Reformation: An Essay on Their Affinities and Connections	p. 225
Venice, Spain, and the Papacy: Paolo Sarpi and the Renaissance Tradition	p. 247
Venice and the Political Education of Europe	p. 266
History and Historians
Three Types of Historiography in Post-Renaissance Italy	p. 295
Gallicanism and the Nature of Christendom	p. 308
The Waning of the Middle Ages Revisited	p. 325
From History of Ideas to History of Meaning	p. 336
The Renaissance and the Drama of Western History	p. 348
Essays in Applied History
Models of the Educated Man	p. 369
Socrates and the Confusion of the Humanities	p. 385
Christian Adulthood	p. 397
Coda
The History Teacher as Mediator	p. 421
Index	p. 431
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

A Usable Past

Essays in European Cultural History

At a Glance

Paperback

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