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Persuasion and Conversion: Essays on Religion, Politics, and the Public Sphere in Early Modern England
Author(s): Torrance Kirby (Author)
- Publisher: Brill
- Publication Date: August 22, 2013
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 240 pages
- ISBN-10: 9004253645
- ISBN-13: 9789004253643
Book Description
The early modern ‘public sphere’ emerges out of a popular ‘culture of persuasion’ fostered by the Protestant Reformation. By 1600, religious identity could no longer be assumed as ‘given’ within the hierarchical institutions and elaborate apparatus of late-medieval ‘sacramental culture’. Reformers insisted on a sharp demarcation between the inner, subjective space of the individual and the external, public space of institutional life. Gradual displacement of sacramental culture was achieved by means of argument, textual interpretation, exhortation, reasoned opinion, and moral advice exercised through both pulpit and press. This alternative culture of persuasion presupposes a radically distinct notion of mediation. The common focus of the essays collected here is the dynamic interaction of religion and politics which provided a crucible for the emerging modern ‘public sphere’.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“[This book] offers an account of the Reformation that takes new and recent research in challenging directions while reasserting the importance of the period to our understanding of modernity.”
Mary Morrissey, University of Reading. In: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 4 (Winter 2014), pp. 1406-1407.
Mary Morrissey, University of Reading. In: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 4 (Winter 2014), pp. 1406-1407.
‘’The volume is more than the sum of its parts. It offers an account of the Reformation that takes new and recent research in challenging directions while reasserting the importance of the period to our understanding of modernity’’
Mary Morrisey, University of Reading. In:
About the Author
Torrance Kirby, DPhil (1988) in Modern History, Christ Church, University of Oxford, is Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Director of the Centre for Research on Religion at McGill University. He has published extensively on the thought of Richard Hooker and recently edited A Companion to Richard Hooker (Brill, 2008).
