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First Published in 1973, The Writing Machine presents a comprehensive history of the typewriter. Michael Adler not only investigated the history of the machine but also started collecting typewriters, because of the difficulty of discovering what these old machines looked like. Then he found there were other collectors all over the world who supplied him with such a wealth of data that he had eventually to limit the scope of his ‘history’. There are hundreds and hundreds of makes and models of ‘conventional’ front-stroke, type bar machines with four-row keyboards, but they were virtually all the same. It is the unconventional ones that are interesting, and it is on these that the author concentrates. The book is amusing as well as informative, and it ends with a complete catalogue of ‘unconventional’ typewriters manufactured up to the 1930s, when the ‘conventional’ machine had become universal. This book is a must read for anyone interested to learn about the writing machine.
A pathbreaking history of early modern education argues that Europe’s oldest university, often seen as a bastion of traditionalism, was in fact a vibrant site of intellectual innovation and cultural exchange. The University of Bologna was among the premier universities in medieval Europe and an international magnet for students of law. However, a long-standing historiographical tradition holds that Bologna—and Italian university education more broadly—foundered in the early modern period. On this view, Bologna’s curriculum ossified and its prestige crumbled, due at least in part to political and religious pressure from Rome. Meanwhile, new ways of thinking flourished instead in human...
In this work, the author contributes to our understanding of the formation of medicine as a university discipline by explaining how a collection of medical works known as the Ars medicine ("The Art of Medicine") came to form the basis of medical teaching in the early universities. Based upon extensive manuscript research, this study explains how the collection evolved to suit the needs of university medical teaching and how it helped to establish Hippocratic-Galenic medicine as the new medical othodoxy. Focusing upon the medical faculty at the University of Paris, the book investigates how medical texts were produced, who owned them and how they were used in the classroom. It thus explains how language was used, how textual authority was created and utilized, and how text-based knowledge was sanctioned in the classroom.
In Healers in the Making, Kira Robison investigates medical instruction at the University of Bologna using the lens of practical medicine, examining both the formation of medical authority and innovations in practical medical pedagogy during the late medieval period.
The essays in Copernirus and his Successors deal both with the influences on Copernicus, including that of Greek and Arabic thinkers, and with his own life and attitudes. They also examine how he was seen by contemporaries and finally describe his relationship to other scientists, including Galileo, Brahe and Kepler.
Some 20 essays discuss the interrelation of ethnic and women's studies, and some of the innovative theories and programs that have succeeded or failed recently. Many of them draw on the author's experience, and include such topics as the pattern of foundation grants, integrating women of color into literature and history courses, and Jewish invisibility in women's studies. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Political exiles were a prominent feature of political life in Renaissance Italy, often a source of intense concern to the states from which they were banished, and a ready instrument for governments wishing to intervene in the affairs of their rivals and enemies. This book, first published in 2000, provides a systematic analysis of the role of exiles in the political life of fifteenth-century Italy. The main focus is on the experiences and reactions of the exiles, and on how Italian states dealt with their own exiles and those of other powers. Siena, notorious in the 1480s for the numbers of her citizens in exile, is used as the model with which other cities are compared. Such a detailed study of the phenomenon of exile also provides alternative perspectives on the nature and power of governments in fifteenth-century Italy, and on ideas about the legitimacy of political authority and political action.
This collection of essays by British, American and French scholars uses the records of the law in Western Europe from the fall of Rome to the nineteenth century in an attempt to outline a social history of the West considered as a history of human relations. The primary themes are dispute, arbitration and conjugal relations; the primary influences considered are feud, Christianity and the state. The contributions are discussed overall by an anthropologist lawyer, Simon Roberts, who writes an anthropological introduction, and by the editor in a short historical postscript. The aim has been to strike a new note in social history by attending more closely to actual people and their actual relations; by drawing on the resources of anthropology, legal history, the history of religious feelings and institutions, and of states, to illuminate their behaviour; and by combining the efforts of scholars representing a diversity of intellectual traditions and a long perspective of human experience.
"The Eve of the Reformation: Studies in the Religious Life and Thought of the English People" by Francis Aidan Gasquet is a significant historical work that delves into the religious climate of England on the eve of the Reformation. Gasquet's scholarly exploration offers valuable insights into the religious beliefs and practices of the English people during this transformative period in history. Through meticulous research and analysis, the book provides a comprehensive understanding of the factors that contributed to the Reformation's emergence. It is an essential read for those interested in the religious and historical context of this era.