Hilary Gatti
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691163833
- eISBN:
- 9781400866304
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691163833.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This concluding chapter reflects on the historical foundation on which the modern discourse of liberty and toleration is based. It looks back to “the long sixteenth century,” the period between 1500 ...
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This concluding chapter reflects on the historical foundation on which the modern discourse of liberty and toleration is based. It looks back to “the long sixteenth century,” the period between 1500 and approximately 1650—specifically between the time of Niccolò Machiavelli and John Milton—during which the principal concepts and themes concerning liberty in the modern world began to emerge against a background of unprecedented violence and oppression. At this time a series of dramatic crises that altered the map of European society and culture, bringing about changes so radical and lasting that all the values that had guided the previous centuries had to be recast in entirely different and unfamiliar molds.Less
This concluding chapter reflects on the historical foundation on which the modern discourse of liberty and toleration is based. It looks back to “the long sixteenth century,” the period between 1500 and approximately 1650—specifically between the time of Niccolò Machiavelli and John Milton—during which the principal concepts and themes concerning liberty in the modern world began to emerge against a background of unprecedented violence and oppression. At this time a series of dramatic crises that altered the map of European society and culture, bringing about changes so radical and lasting that all the values that had guided the previous centuries had to be recast in entirely different and unfamiliar molds.
Hilary Gatti
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691163833
- eISBN:
- 9781400866304
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691163833.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This introductory chapter tackles the difficult question of liberty as it was developed in the Western world since the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. Clearly related, in the first ...
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This introductory chapter tackles the difficult question of liberty as it was developed in the Western world since the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. Clearly related, in the first instance, to the aftermath of the systematic persecution and massacre of the Jews and the dictatorial regimes that succeeded in coming to power in some of the most civilized and refined cultures of the Western world, a literature has been produced on the liberty that was lost—and only arduously (and not always fully) regained—that is daunting both in its quantity and quality. Alongside this brief discussion of the term “liberty” and all it implies, the chapter turns to another issue which is often brought up alongside debates about liberty—republicanism. This chapter explores some theses on republicanism to form a context based on the historical roots of the liberty discourse.Less
This introductory chapter tackles the difficult question of liberty as it was developed in the Western world since the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. Clearly related, in the first instance, to the aftermath of the systematic persecution and massacre of the Jews and the dictatorial regimes that succeeded in coming to power in some of the most civilized and refined cultures of the Western world, a literature has been produced on the liberty that was lost—and only arduously (and not always fully) regained—that is daunting both in its quantity and quality. Alongside this brief discussion of the term “liberty” and all it implies, the chapter turns to another issue which is often brought up alongside debates about liberty—republicanism. This chapter explores some theses on republicanism to form a context based on the historical roots of the liberty discourse.
David Baker
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804738569
- eISBN:
- 9780804772907
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804738569.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
In early modern England, while moralists railed against the theater as wasteful and depraved, and inflation whittled away at the value of wages, people attended the theater in droves. This book draws ...
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In early modern England, while moralists railed against the theater as wasteful and depraved, and inflation whittled away at the value of wages, people attended the theater in droves. This book draws on recent economic history and theory to account for this puzzling consumer behavior. The author shows that during this period, demand itself, with its massed acquisitive energies, transformed the English economy. Over the long sixteenth century, consumption burgeoned, though justifications for it lagged behind. People were in a curious predicament: they practiced consumption on a mass scale but had few acceptable reasons for doing so. In the literary marketplace, authors became adept at accommodating such contradictions, fashioning works that spoke to self-divided consumers: Thomas Nashe castigated and satiated them at the same time; William Shakespeare satirized credit problems; Ben Jonson investigated the problems of global trade; and Robert Burton enlisted readers in a project of economic betterment.Less
In early modern England, while moralists railed against the theater as wasteful and depraved, and inflation whittled away at the value of wages, people attended the theater in droves. This book draws on recent economic history and theory to account for this puzzling consumer behavior. The author shows that during this period, demand itself, with its massed acquisitive energies, transformed the English economy. Over the long sixteenth century, consumption burgeoned, though justifications for it lagged behind. People were in a curious predicament: they practiced consumption on a mass scale but had few acceptable reasons for doing so. In the literary marketplace, authors became adept at accommodating such contradictions, fashioning works that spoke to self-divided consumers: Thomas Nashe castigated and satiated them at the same time; William Shakespeare satirized credit problems; Ben Jonson investigated the problems of global trade; and Robert Burton enlisted readers in a project of economic betterment.
