Author: Crawford Gribben File Type: pdf For many English puritans, the new world represented new opportunities for the reification of reformation, if not a site within which they might begin to experience the conditions of the millennium itself. For many Irish Catholics, by contrast, the new world became associated with the experience of defeat, forced transportation, indentured service, cultural and religious loss. And yet, as the chapters in this volume demonstrate, the Atlantic experience of puritans and Catholics could be much less bifurcated than some of the established scholarly narratives have suggested puritans and Catholics could co-exist within the same trans-Atlantic families Catholics could prosper, just as puritans could experience financial decline and Catholics and puritans could adopt, and exchange, similar kinds of belief structures and practical arrangements, even to the extent of being mistaken for each other. This volume investigates the history of Puritans and Catholics in the Atlantic world, 1600-1800.**About the AuthorCrawford Gribben is Professor of Early Modern British History at Queens University Belfast, UK. He is the author of several books on the literary cultures of Puritanism and evangelicalism, including Gods Irishmen (2007), Writing the Rapture Prophecy fiction in evangelical America (2009), and Evangelical millennialism in the trans-Atlantic world, 1500-2000 (2011). R. Scott Spurlock is Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Glasgow, UK. He has held posts at the University of Aberdeen, Trinity College Dublin, the Institute of Theology at Queens University Belfast and the University of Manchester. Alongside Crawford Gribben, he co-edits two books series Palgrave Macmillans Christianities in the Trans-Atlantic World, 15001800 and Scottish Religious Cultures Historical Perspectives.

Author: Daniel Mendelsohn File Type: epub Over the past decade and a half, Daniel Mendelsohns reviews forThe New York Review of Books,The New Yorker, andThe New York Times Book Reviewhave earned him a reputation as one of the greatest critics of our time (Poets&Writers). InWaiting for the Barbarians, he brings together twenty-four of his recent essayseach one glinting with verve and sparkle, acumen and passionon a wide range of subjects, fromAvatarto the poems of Arthur Rimbaud, from our inexhaustible fascination with theTitanicto Susan SontagsJournals. Trained as a classicist, author of two internationally best-selling memoirs, Mendelsohn moves easily from penetrating considerations of the ways in which the classics continue to make themselves felt in contemporary life and letters (Greek myth in theSpider-Manmusical, Anne Carsons translations of Sappho) to trenchant takes on pop spectaclesnone more explosively controversial than his dissection ofMad Men.br Also gathered here are essays devoted to the art of fiction, from Jonathan Littells Holocaust blockbusterThe Kindly Onesto forgotten gems like the novels of Theodor Fontane. In a final section, Private Lives, prefaced by MendelsohnsNew Yorkeressay on fake memoirs, he considers the lives and work of writers as disparate as Leo Lerman, Noel Coward, and Jonathan Franzen.Waiting for the Barbariansonce again demonstrates that Mendelsohns sweep as a cultural critic is as impressive as his depth.From BookforumThe most compelling reviews in Daniel Mendelsohns very good new collection of them, Waiting for the Barbarians, are decidedly mixed. Five-thousand-word love letters require a kind of wild passion that seems foreign to Mendelsohns coolly intelligent prose. Give him a flaw to diagnose, on the other hand, and Mendelsohn will solve it with Sherlockian elan. Mixed reviews... become intellectual detective stories, and Mendelsohn provides illuminating, elegant solutions. David Haglund ReviewMendelsohn is a deep thinking with insightful charm. All fans of intelligent thought on popular culture will appreciate his commentary. Library Journalbr Mendelsohns work is absolutely vital in both senses of the wordit breaths with an exciting intelligence often absent in similar but stodgier writing, and it should be required reading for anyone interested in dissecting culture, or who simply find themselves thinking about the complex flaws of an almost-good movie a week after leaving the cinema. In the book, his scope includes both the high- and middlebrow.Taken together, the collection offers a sort of defense of the modern age of culture. If a true-blue classicist can engage with the current zeitgeist using the full weight of his intellect and without an iota of demoralization, than the rest of us have no excuse. Nicholas Mancusi, The Daily Beastbr Even more than his earlier books about literature and culture, it displays his characteristic strengths of style and judgment and his distinctive and engaging voice. As always, he is surprising yet convincing when he praises what practically everyone else condemns, or sees through the pretensions and confusions of books and dramas that everyone else admires. Edward Mendelson, The New York Review of Booksbr Waiting for the Barbarians adds up to more than the sum of its parts, evidencing an impressive range, depth and nobility of mind. Mendelsohn is a trained classics scholar, from which much of his intellectual authority still derives witness his brilliantly illuminating, lucid essays on Homer, Sappho, Herodotus and Horace. He writes about pop culture with equal enthusiasm. Phillip Lopate, San Francisco Chroniclebr Waiting for the Barbarians, his latest collection of essays and reviews, is full of prose in praise of Horace, of Sappho, of Homer, and of the ghosts of all the above across all of popular culture. It makes it clear he is now, and has been for some time, the finest critic alive. John Freeman, *Toronto Starbr Another top-notch collection of previously published criticism from Mendelsohn. Kirkus Reviews*br [Mendelsohn] is a brilliant storyteller, influenced by the Greek masters he so admires *The Times of Londonbr A joy from start to finisha wonderfully eclectic set of musings on the state of contemporary culture and the enduring richness of classical literature. Publishers Weeklybr A classicist by training and a critic by trade, he begins with a challenging subject and gloriously complicates it by drawing on his erudition, acumen, and passion for precision and bedrock truth.These are works of brilliant and soulful criticism. Booklistbr Mendelsohnis a gifted and entertaining writer. His prose is gorgeous and lyrical and his subjects are smartly considered and freshly revealed. Vanity Fair*