You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
"Japan’s “Christian Century” began in 1549 with the arrival of Jesuit missionaries led by Saint Francis Xavier, and ended in 1639 when the Tokugawa regime issued the final Sakoku Edict prohibiting all traffic with Catholic lands. “Sakoku”—national isolation—would for more than two centuries be the sum total of the regime’s approach to foreign affairs. This policy was accompanied by the persecution of Christians inside Japan, a course of action for which the missionaries and their zealots were in part responsible because of their dogmatic orthodoxy. The Christians insisted that “Deus” was owed supreme loyalty, while the Tokugawa critics insisted on the prior importance of ...
The essays in this volume explore how two domains of human experience and action--religion and technology--are implicated in each other. Contrary to commonsense understandings of both religion (as an "otherworldly" orientation) and technology (as the name for tools, techniques, and expert knowledges oriented to "this" world), the contributors to this volume challenge the grounds on which this division has been erected in the first place. What sorts of things come to light when one allows religion and technology to mingle freely? In an effort to answer that question, Deus in Machina embarks upon an interdisciplinary voyage across diverse traditions and contexts where religion and technology m...
The voyage of Vasco da Gama to India (1497-1499) was one of the seminal events of the Renaissance period. An anonymous Journal kept by a member of his fleet has long served as the main documentary source for accounts of this voyage. Strangely, there has only been one English translation of this important document, published more than a century ago. This book provides a new, updated English translation of the Journal with extensive editorial notes and appendices which encompass and reflect changes in the historiography over the last century on Vasco da Gama and his first voyage. In doing so, it examines initial Portuguese impressions when confronted by the cultures of Africa and India during this period.