Author: Andreas Rieck File Type: pdf The Shias of Pakistan are the worlds second largest Shia community after that of Iran, but comprise only 10-15 per cent of Pakistans population. In recent decades Sunni extremists have increasingly targeted them with hate propaganda and terrorism, yet paradoxically Shias have always been fully integrated into all sections of political, professional and social life without suffering any discrimination. In mainstream politics, the Shia- Sunni divide has never been an issue in Pakistan. Shia politicians in Pakistan have usually downplayed their religious beliefs, but there have always been individuals and groups who emphasised their Shia identity, and who zealously campaigned for equal rights for the Shias wherever and whenever they perceived these to be threatened. Shia ulama have been at the forefront of communal activism in Pakistan since 1949, but Shia laymen also participated in such organisations, as they had in pre-partition India. Based mainly on Urdu sources, Riecks book examines, first, the history of Pakistans Shias, including their communal organisations, the growth of the Shia ulama class, of religious schools and rivalry between orthodox ulama and popular preachers second, the outcome of lobbying of successive Pakistan governments by Shia organisations and third, the Shia-Sunni conflict, which is increasingly virulent due to the states failure to combat Sunni extremism. **

Author: Gianna Pomata File Type: pdf The early modern genre of historia connected the study of nature and the study of culture from the early Renaissance to the eighteenth century. The ubiquity of historia as a descriptive method across a variety of disciplines -- including natural history, medicine, antiquarianism, and philology -- indicates how closely intertwined these scholarly pursuits were in the early modern period. The essays collected in this volume demonstrate that historia can be considered a key epistemic tool of early modern intellectual practices.Focusing on the actual use of historia across disciplines, the essays highlight a distinctive feature of early modern descriptive sciences the coupling of observational skills with philological learning, empiricism with erudition. Thus the essays bring to light previously unexamined links between the culture of humanism and the scientific revolution.The contributors, from a range of disciplines that echoes the broad scope of early modern historia, examine such topics as the development of a new interest in historical method from the Renaissance artes historicae to the eighteenth-century tension between history and system shifts in Aristotelian thought paving the way for revaluation of historia as descriptive knowledge the rise of the new discipline of natural history the uses of historia in anatomical and medical investigation and the writing of history by physicians parallels between the practices of collecting and presenting information in both natural history and antiquarianism and significant examples of the ease with which early seventeenth-century antiquarian scholars moved from studies of nature to studies of culture.ReviewThe meaning of the term historia in the early modern vocabulary of knowledge was so varied and so multilayered that it can be properly understood only when approached from multiple angles. This book brings together scholars from a wide variety of disciplines to explore the terms manifold meanings, revealing a rich and highly textured understanding of historia that is utterly lost to the modern world. With essays ranging from the study of the human past to the meaning of historia in medicine and natural history, it provides a fascinating glimpse into the intellectual world of the late Renaissance.--William Eamon, Regents Professor of History, New Mexico State UniversityWhile today we may take the importance of facts for granted, a few centuries ago the search for examples of true events and real things (historia), and a reluctance to speculate about causes, helped to create an intellectual revolution in both the natural and the human sciences. Between about 1450 and 1650, getting the details right mattered to just about everyone. A careful search for accurate information lay behind the production of natural histories, case histories, civil and religious histories, and other studies. This collection makes sense of that common enterprise and, in a number of elegant essays, underlines the contemporary importance of being correct. It is a work of significance to all who study the period, the history of ideas, and the history of science and medicine.--Harold J. Cook, The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, University College LondonAbout the AuthorGianna Pomata is Associate Professor of History at the University of Bologna.

Author: Marcella Corsi File Type: pdf Classical Economics Today Essays in Honor of Alessandro Roncaglia is a collection of essays that pays tribute to Alessandro Roncaglia whose research is based on Schumpeters dictum that good economics must encompass history, economic theory and statistics, and therefore does not generally take the form of elegant formal models that are applicable to all and everything. In this direction, Roncaglia is inspired by the Classical economists of the past and becomes a model for present-day Classical economists. A perceptible family air imbues the essays all the contributors are friends of Roncaglia and see his personality and his interests as a common point of reference. **

Author: Miranda Wilcox File Type: pdf Winner of the Best Anthology Award from John Whitmer Historical Association Latter-day Saints have a paradoxical relationship to the past even as they invest their own history with sacred meaning, celebrating the restoration of ancient truths and the fulfillment of biblical prophecies, they repudiate the eighteen centuries of Christianity that preceded the founding of their church as apostate distortions of the truth. Since the early days of Mormonism, Latter-day Saints have used the paradigm of apostasy and restoration in their narratives about the origin of their church. This has generated a powerful and enduring binary of categorization that has profoundly impacted Mormon self-perception and relations with others. Standing Apart explores how the idea of apostasy has functioned as a category to mark, define, and set apart the other in Mormon historical consciousness and in the construction of Mormon narrative identity. The volumes fifteen contributors trace the development of LDS narratives of apostasy within the context of both Mormon history and American Protestant historiography. They suggest ways in which these narratives might be reformulated to engage with the past, as well as offering new models for interfaith relations. This volume provides a novel approach for understanding and resolving some of the challenges faced by the LDS church in the twenty-first century. **