Author: Patrick J. Geary File Type: pdf To obtain sacred relics, medieval monks plundered tombs, avaricious merchants raided churches, and relic-mongers scoured the Roman catacombs. In a revised edition of Furta Sacra, Patrick Geary considers the social and cultural context for these acts, asking how the relics were perceived and why the thefts met with the approval of medieval Christians.Amazon.com ReviewSaints are special kinds of heroes. They are of little interest as everyday people their real significance lies in the way they exemplify universal values given by God. In Furta Sacra Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages, Patrick J. Geary devotes microscopic attention to the way medieval Christians and merchants raided tombs, plundered churches, and scoured the Roman catacombs in order to obtain sacred relics. Although Geary rejects the notion that cults of saints were pure manifestations of religious devotions devoid of cultural associations, he honors the religious impulses of some truly outrageous behavior. Gearys study is academic and a bit of a brain stretcher, but its fairly short and worth close attention. In describing how hagiography mirrored the values of medieval society, he provides a helpful road map for alert readers interested in contemporary cults of saints. When Evangelicals honor C.S. Lewis, for instance, or South American Christians remember Eva Peron, or even when movie memorabilia collectors pay big bucks for Dorothys ruby slippers, they relive a very old dream of bringing humanitys highest ideals down into earthly form. --Michael Joseph GrossReview[This] is a superb book, original and immaculate in scholarship, elegant in style and though. (R. I. Moore Times Higher Education Supplement )A shrewd, interesting, and helpful study. (C. N. L. Brooke History )Geary is at his best in unraveling the tangled accounts of individual thefts to suggest the reasons for their occurrence and in describing the central role of saints and their relics in this age. His exposition of the medieval view that saints resided with and participated actively in the affairs of the communities possessing their relics is essential to understanding the function of saints in this society and the desire of communities to steal or, as he argues, to kidnap them. (John M. McCulloh American Historical Review )This is a fascinating study of a medieval way of thinking which in certain circumstances countenanced thefts of sacred relics from tombs, churches, and Roman catacombs. . . . Furta Sacra is a truly impressive history shedding much light on a difficult dimension of popular Christian piety in another age. (Michael Connors Church History )

Author: Patrick Frank File Type: pdf Brings long overdue recognition and reevaluation to Nueva Figuracion. Offers a contemporary reexamination of the artworks beyond that of Argentinas complex political history for a more global interpretation.Carol Damian, author of Neorealism and Contemporary Colombian Painting Chronicles an important and little-known episode in the history of Argentine art and thoughtfully locates the movement within the complex cultural and political landscape of its time.Abigail McEwen, University of Maryland, College Park Although it is one of Latin Americas most significant postwar art movements, Nueva Figuracion has long been overlooked in studies of modern art. In this first comprehensive examination of the movement, Patrick Frank explores the work of four artists at its heartJorge de la Vega, Luis Felipe Noe, Romulo Maccio, and Ernesto Deirato demonstrate the importance of their work in the transnational development of modern art. The artists were responding directly to a difficult and chaotic period characterized by civil strife, frequent changes of government, and economic shocks. They broke new ground in Latin American art, not only in their technique, but also in the way they engaged the social, political, and cultural climate in an Argentina still recovering from the Peron years. Building on postwar expressionism by working with unprecedented urgency and abandon, they combined spontaneous techniques of abstraction with collage elements and figural subjects. Their works exercised a creative freedom that broke taboos about the role of the artist in society. Frank combines analyses of each artists paintings with discussions of their social, political, and artistic contexts. He reveals the works connections to literature, popular culture, and film, broadening our understanding of modern art in the early 1960s. **

Author: Steven Weber File Type: pdf Free-market capitalism, hegemony, Western culture, peace, and democracythe ideas that shaped world politics in the twentieth century and underpinned American foreign policyhave lost a good deal of their strength. Authority is now more contested and power more diffuse. Hegemony (benign or otherwise) is no longer a choice, not for the United States, for China, or for anyone else. Steven Weber and Bruce Jentleson are not declinists, but they argue that the United States must take a different stance toward the rest of the world in this, the twenty-first century. Now that we cant dominate others, we must rely on strategy, making trade-offs and focusing our efforts. And they do not mean military strategy, such as the global war on terror. Rather, we must compete in the global marketplace of ideaswith state-directed capitalism, with charismatic authoritarian leaders, with jihadism. In politics, ideas and influence are now critical currency. At the core of our efforts must be a new conception of the world order based on mutuality, and of a just society that inspires and embraces people around the world. **From Publishers Weekly In this concise book, Weber, a professor at Berkeley, and Jentleson, a professor at Duke, identify five big ideas that dominated international politics in the 20th century peace is better than war benign hegemony is better than a balance of power capitalism is better than socialism democracy is better than dictatorship and western culture is superior to other cultures. The authors argue that for much of the world a repressive government that achieves economic progress (as is the case in Singapore, for instance) is preferable to a democratic government that fails to improve living standards this shift, the authors argue, needs to be understood by the American people in order for the U.S. to successfully transition from lone superpower to savvy and influential player. Though their message is far from new, its extremely well articulated. Yet finding an audience for this book may be a challenge its too simplistic for foreign policy wonks and too sophisticated to find a home on Main Street. (c) PWxyz, LLC. Review In this little book, two leading scholars offer a manifesto for U.S. leadership in a post-Western international system...Acknowledging that no country has a monopoly on good ideas, the book makes a good case that the United States needs to recast the way it talks about its role in the world. (G. John Ikenberry Foreign Affairs 2010-11-01) The End of Arrogance makes a strong case for the end of the hegemony of American ideas in the foreign-policy sphere, examines what a more complex and diverse set of influences could create in terms of a future world order, and offers some important advice on how America can keep up in a more competitive world. (Elizabeth Dickinson Foreign Policy blog 2010-09-03) Dazzling. (Ronald Brownstein National Journal) Weber and Jentleson put forward a powerful and provocative view of the coming frontiers for foreign policy--a global competition of ideas. Their arguments pose the right challenge to governments, corporations, and NGOs operating on a global stage, and provide practical advice for what to do about it. (Janice Stein, Director, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto)

Author: Sarah Wise File Type: epub A brilliant new book about the seedy side of Victorian London by a talented young historian. In 1887, government inspectors were sent to report on the horrifying, often lethal, living conditions of the Old Nichol, a notorious 15-acre slum in Londons East End. Among much else, they found that the rotting 100-year-old houses were some of the most lucrative properties in the capital for their absent slumlords. Peers of the Realm, local politicians, churchmen and lawyers were making profits on these death-traps of as much as 150 per cent per annum. Before long, Old Nichol became a focus of public attention its 6,000 inhabitants were condemned for their drunkenness and criminality. The solution to the problem lay in internment camps, some said, or forced emigration even eugenics. The Blackest Streets focuses on the last fifteen years of the nineteenth century, a turbulent period in Londons history, when revolution was very much in the air when unemployment, agricultural depression and a crackdown on parish relief provided a breeding ground for communists and anarchists. Sarah Wise explores the real lives behind the statistics, excavating the Old Nichol from the ruins of history, laying bare the social and political conditions that created and sustained this black hole at the very heart of the Empire. From the Hardcover edition. **