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Although perceived since the sixteenth century as the most impressive literary achievement of Byzantine culture, historical writing nevertheless remains little studied as literature. Historical texts are still read first and foremost for nuggets of information, as main sources for the reconstruction of the events of Byzantine history. Whatever can be called literary in these works has been considered as external and detachable from the facts. The 'classical tradition' inherited by Byzantine writers, the features that Byzantine authors imitated and absorbed, are regarded as standing in the way of understanding the true meaning of the text and, furthermore, of contaminating the reliability of ...
"The Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) is the known as the father of modern biological taxonomy. One of the greatest scientists in history, he formalized and popularized the system of binomial nomenclature and classified thousands of species of plants and animals. In his field, he is so well known that he is often referred to simply as "L." In this comprehensive biography, Linnaeus scholar Gunnar Broberg, draws on a wide range of new research to paint a vivid and intimate portrait of the man. Delving deep into Linnaeus's correspondence and other contemporary sources, Broberg introduces reader's to Linnaeus's family and takes them along on his famous expedition to Lapland. He also investigates the scientist's private thoughts on subjects such as evolution and religion, which often yielded eccentric results. Despite, or perhaps because, of his great achievement, Linnaeus could be moody and egotistical, and this nuanced biography does not shy away from presenting both his scientific achievements and human failings"--
The Finnish mathematician and astronomer Anders Johan Lexell (1740–1784) was a long-time close collaborator as well as the academic successor of Leonhard Euler at the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg. Lexell was initially invited by Euler from his native town of Abo (Turku) in Finland to Saint Petersburg to assist in the mathematical processing of the astronomical data of the forthcoming transit of Venus of 1769. A few years later he became an ordinary member of the Academy. This is the first-ever full-length biography devoted to Lexell and his prolific scientific output. His rich correspondence especially from his grand tour to Germany, France and England reveals him as a lucid observer of the intellectual landscape of enlightened Europe. In the skies, a comet, a minor planet and a crater on the Moon named after Lexell also perpetuate his memory.
Looks at the efforts of the J Paul Getty Museum to preserve and expose a stunning 16th century triptych. This book documents the dramatic process of revealing the brilliance of a 16th-century masterpiece.
Thomas Robert Malthus's reputation has lately been rehabilitated in the fields of social biology, demography, environmentalism, and economics. In the midst of this current interest and with the chance to mark the occasion of the bicentenary of the first edition of the Essay on Population (1798), the contributors to this volume take this timely opportunity to examine the historical conditions in which Malthus constructed his theory, and in which the concept of a ‘Malthusian' and ‘Neo-Malthusian' philosophy first emerged. The essays redress the balance between Malthus's original argument, the immediate responses to Malthus by medics and theologians in Britain and on the Continent, and some of the ways that his ideas were later attacked, appropriated, or misrepresented. Included here are essays that not only re-evaluate the development of Malthus's theory, but also offer critical perspectives on the generation of the ‘Malthusian league' and debates about birth control in Britain and on the Continent, and Malthus's influence on the emergence of social science and Darwinian evolutionary biology.
Representing Jewish Thought offers essays on modes and media of transmitting and re/presenting thought pertinent to Jewish past and present, zooming in on textual and visual hermeneutics to material and textual culture to performing arts.
This book explores the transformations of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas in the Middle Ages. It also connects the different representations of children, childhood, everyday- and family life in the distinct textual versions to the ancient and medieval settings in which they appear. The text survived and influenced ideas and mentalities that shaped medieval minds in the East and the West, but also enhanced anti-Jewish sentiments.
An international, cross-disciplinary investigation of ancient religious practices and their material remains yields fresh insights and poses new questions
This study employs as its primary source a codex from Uppsala University Library, Codex Upsaliensis Graecus 8 . Its aim is to contribute to a better understanding of the Late Byzantine and post-Byzantine miscellaneous book. It is argued that multitext books reflect the time and society in which they were created. A thorough investigation of such books sheds light on the interests and concerns of the scribes, owners, and readers of the books. Containing some ninety texts of different character and from different genres, Codex Upsaliensis Graecus 8 is a complex creation, but still an example of a type of book that was common during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This study takes a compre...
In Scholars in Action, an international group of 40 authors open up new perspectives on the eighteenth-century culture of knowledge, with a particular focus on scholars and their various practices.