Author: Joachim Whaley File Type: pdf Germany and the Holy Roman Empire offers a new interpretation of the development of German-speaking central Europe and the Holy Roman Empire or German Reich, from the great reforms of 1495-1500 to its dissolution in 1806 after the turmoil of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Going against the notion that this was a long period of decline, Joachim Whaley shows how imperial institutions developed in response to the crises of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, notably the Reformation and Thirty Years War, and assesses the impact of international developments on the Reich. Central themes are the tension between Habsburg aspirations to create a German monarchy and the desire of the German princes and cities to maintain their traditional rights, and how the Reich developed the functions of a state during this period. The first single-author account of German history from the Reformation to the early nineteenth century since Hajo Holborns study written in the 1950s, it also illuminates the development of the German territories subordinate to the Reich. Whaley explores the implications of the Reformation and subsequent religious reform movements, both Protestant and Catholic, and the Enlightenment for the government of both secular and ecclesiastical principalities, the minor territories of counts and knights and the cities. The Reich and the territories formed a coherent and workable system and, as a polity, the Reich developed its own distinctive political culture and traditions of German patriotism over the early modern period. Whaley explains the development of the Holy Roman Empire as an early modern polity and illuminates the evolution of the several hundred German territories within it. He gives a rich account of topics such as the Reformation, the Thirty Years War, Pietism and baroque Catholicism, the Aufklarung or German Enlightenment and the impact on the Empire and its territories of the French Revolution and Napoleon. It includes consideration of language, cultural aspects and religious and intellectual movements. Germany and the Holy Roman Empire engages with all the major debates among both German and English-speaking historians about early modern German history over the last sixty years and offers a striking new interpretation of this important period. Volume II starts with the end of the Thirty Years War and extends to the dissolution of the Reich **ReviewJoachim Whaley crowns a long generations work of demystifying the empires history with these two large, learned, and impressive volumes. ... [A] magnificent achievement. --Journal of Modern HistoryWhaleys account is one of the best works on early modern German history. From the first page to the last, it shows how German history can be presented as both a history of Emperor and Empire, and a history of common culture. It will immediately establish itself as a standard guide to its subject.--Georg Schmidt, Friedrich Schiller University, JenaThese two volumes offer an historical survey of roughly three centuries such as I have never before encountered. Joachim Whaley has produced a masterpiece. He has not overlooked anything at all. The two volumes are perfectly researched and the price of 130$e is more than reasonable. Anyone interested in modern history and in particular the history of Germany must read this work. --Fachbuch Kritik (review of the German edition) ...[A] pleasure to read.... Whaley shows how the efforts to create an intellectual and political framework in the pre-constitutional era had lasting effects to the present. --Kolner Stadt-Anzeiger (review of the German edition)[A] great achievement that he has introduced the English-speaking public to German history before the twentieth century in such a comprehensive manner and that he shows so decisively how the old national narrative has been revised. The sheer volume of the material that he employs also commands respect. --Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (review of the German edition)The new standard work on the period in which people still spoke of German liberties. --Die Zeit (review of the German edition)About the Author Joachim Whaley read History at Christs College Cambridge. He held Fellowships in History at Christs College and Robinson College before becoming a Lecturer in German in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge, where he teaches German history, thought, and language. He is the author of Religious Toleration and Social Change in Hamburg 1529-1819 and of numerous articles on early modern and modern German history. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1984.

Author: David Finkelhor File Type: pdf Children are the most criminally victimized segment of the population, and a substantial number face multiple, serious poly-victimizations during a single year. And despite the fact that the priority emphasis in academic research and government policy has traditionally gone to studying juvenile delinquents, children actually appear before authorities more frequently as victims than as offenders. But at the same time, the media and many advocates have failed to note the good news rates of sexual abuse, child homicide, and many other forms of victimization declined dramatically after the mid-1990s, and some terribly feared forms of child victimization, like stereotypical stranger abduction, are remarkably uncommon. The considerable ignorance about the realities of child victimization can be chalked up to a field that is fragmented, understudied, and subjected to political demagoguery. In this persuasive book, David Finkelhor presents a comprehensive new vision to encompass the prevention, treatment, and study of juvenile victims, unifying conventional subdivisions like child molestation, child abuse, bullying, and exposure to community violence. Developmental victimology, his term for this integrated perspective, looks at child victimization across childhoods span and yields fascinating insights about how to categorize juvenile victimizations, how to think about risk and impact, and how victimization patterns change over the course of development. The book also provides a valuable new model of societys response to child victimization - what Finkelhor calls the Juvenile Victim Justice System - and a fresh way of thinking about barriers that victims and their families encounter when seeking help. These models will be very useful to anyone seeking to improve the way we try to help child victims. Crimes against children still happen far too often, but by proposing a new framework for thinking about the issue, Childhood Victimization opens a promising door to reducing its frequency and improving the response. Professionals, policymakers, and child advocates will find this paradigm-shifting book to be a valuable addition to their shelves. **Review ...an important book...As in all his work, Finkelhor proceeds in a careful analytical way, sorting through explanations, advancing helpful classification systems and making good use of empirical evidence where it exists...[He is] a stimulating theorist and policy analyst. Finkelhor has challenged specialists in a way which will hopefully lead to productive and practically important scholarship.--Northwest Institute for Children and Families ...a must read book.--The Lancet About the Author David Finkelhor is a Professor of Sociology and the Director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.

Author: Louis Betty File Type: pdf Michel Houellebecq is Frances most famous and controversial living novelist. Since his first novel in 1994, Houellebecqs work has been called pornographic, racist, sexist, Islamophobic, and vulgar. His caricature appeared on the cover of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on January 7, 2015, the day that Islamist militants killed twelve people in an attack on their offices and also the day that his most recent novel, Soumissionthe story of France in 2022 under a Muslim presidentappeared in bookstores. Without God uses religion as a lens to examine how Houellebecq gives voice to the underside of the progressive ethos that has animated French and Western social, political, and religious thought since the 1960s.Focusing on Houellebecqs complicated relationship with religion, Louis Betty shows that the novelist, who is at best agnostic, is a deeply and unavoidably religious writer. In exploring the religious, theological, and philosophical aspects of Houellebecqs work, Betty situates the author within the broader context of a French and Anglo-American history of ideasideas such as utopian socialism, the sociology of secularization, and quantum physics. Materialism, Betty contends, is the true destroyer of human intimacy and spirituality in Houellebecqs work the prevailing worldview it conveys is one of nihilism and hedonism in a postmodern, post-Christian Europe. In Bettys analysis, materialist horror emerges as a philosophical and aesthetic concept that describes and amplifies contemporary moral and social decadence in Houellebecqs fiction.**ReviewEntirely brilliant from a methodological point of view, Without God sheds a great deal of light on the work of Michel Houellebecq. Given its very broad perspective and the importance of the issues at stake, this book will appeal to a wide range of readers.Bruno Viard, Universite de ProvenceMichel Houellebecq is the most important novelist writing about religion today, and Louis Betty has written the first book to explore Houellebecqs views on religion. Betty guides the reader through Houellebecqs oeuvre, makes French discussions of Houellebecq accessible to English-speaking audiences, and situates Houellebecqs work in the context of recent scholarly discussions about the secular. This book should be of broad interest to scholars of religion and literature as well as to those interested in contemporary French thought.Vincent Lloyd, Syracuse UniversityAbout the Author Louis Betty is Assistant Professor of French at the University of WisconsinWhitewater.

Author: Stephan Thernstrom File Type: pdf About the AuthorStephan Thernstrom is Professor of History, Harvard University, and Director of the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History.