DOC Socrates and the Jews: Hellenism and Hebraism from Moses Mendelssohn to Sigmund Freud by Miriam Leonard in History

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What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” Asked by the early Christian Tertullian; the question was vigorously debated in the nineteenth century. While classics dominated the intellectual life of Europe; Christianity still prevailed and conflicts raged between the religious and the secular. Taking on the question of how the glories of the classical world could be reconciled with the Bible; Socrates and the Jews explains how Judaism played a vital role in defining modern philhellenism.Exploring the tension between Hebraism and Hellenism; Miriam Leonard gracefully probes the philosophical tradition behind the development of classical philology and considers how the conflict became a preoccupation for the leading thinkers of modernity; including Matthew Arnold; Moses Mendelssohn; Kant; Marx; Nietzsche; and Freud. For each; she shows how the contrast between classical and biblical traditions is central to writings about rationalism; political subjectivity; and progress. Illustrating how the encounter between Athens and Jerusalem became a lightning rod for intellectual concerns; this book is a sophisticated addition to the history of ideas._x000D_ In the late 1800s; “Arctic Fever” swept across the nation as dozens of American expeditions sailed north to the Arctic to find a sea route to Asia and; ultimately; to stand at the North Pole. Few of these missions were successful; and many men lost their lives en route. Yet failure did little to dampen the enthusiasm of new explorers or the crowds at home that cheered them on. Arctic exploration; Michael F. Robinson argues; was an activity that unfolded in America as much as it did in the wintry hinterland. Paying particular attention to the perils facing explorers at home; The Coldest Crucible examines their struggles to build support for the expeditions before departure; defend their claims upon their return; and cast themselves as men worthy of the nation’s full attention. In so doing; this book paints a new portrait of polar voyagers; one that removes them from the icy backdrop of the Arctic and sets them within the tempests of American cultural life. With chronological chapters featuring emblematic Arctic explorers—including Elisha Kent Kane; Charles Hall; and Robert Peary—The Coldest Crucible reveals why the North Pole; a region so geographically removed from Americans; became an iconic destination for discovery._x000D_ A century after his presidency; Woodrow Wilson remains one of the most compelling and complicated figures ever to occupy the Oval Office. A political outsider; Wilson brought to the presidency a distinctive; strongly held worldview; built on powerful religious traditions that informed his idea of America and its place in the world. With A Peaceful Conquest; Cara Lea Burnidge presents the most detailed analysis yet of how Wilson’s religious beliefs affected his vision of American foreign policy; with repercussions that lasted into the Cold War and beyond. Framing Wilson’s intellectual development in relationship to the national religious landscape; and paying greater attention to the role of religion than in previous scholarship; Burnidge shows how Wilson’s blend of Southern evangelicalism and social Christianity became a central part of how America saw itself in the world; influencing seemingly secular policy decisions in subtle; lasting ways. Ultimately; Burnidge makes a case for Wilson’s religiosity as one of the key drivers of the emergence of the public conception of America’s unique; indispensable role in international relations. As the presidential election cycle once again raises questions of America’s place in the world; A Peaceful Conquest offers a fascinating excavation of its little-known roots. _x000D_ In a remarkably short period of time; the realization of religious freedom has achieved broad consensus as an indispensable condition for peace. Faced with widespread reports of religious persecution; public and private actors around the world have responded with laws and policies designed to promote freedom of religion. But what precisely is being promoted? What are the cultural and epistemological assumptions underlying this response; and what forms of politics are enabled in the process? The fruits of the three-year Politics of Religious Freedom research project; the contributions to this volume unsettle the assumption—ubiquitous in policy circles—that religious freedom is a singular achievement; an easily understood state of affairs; and that the problem lies in its incomplete accomplishment. Taking a global perspective; the more than two dozen contributors delineate the different conceptions of religious freedom predominant in the world today; as well as their histories and social and political contexts. Together; the contributions make clear that the reasons for persecution are more varied and complex than is widely acknowledged; and that the indiscriminate promotion of a single legal and cultural tool meant to address conflict across a wide variety of cultures can have the perverse effect of exacerbating the problems that plague the communities cited as falling short._x000D_ Up until the end of the eighteenth century; the way Ottomans used their clocks conformed to the inner logic of their own temporal culture. However; this began to change rather dramatically during the nineteenth century; as the Ottoman Empire was increasingly assimilated into the European-dominated global economy and the project of modern state building began to gather momentum. In Reading Clocks; Alla Turca; Avner Wishnitzer unravels the complexity of Ottoman temporal culture and for the first time tells the story of its transformation. He explains that in their attempt to attain better surveillance capabilities and higher levels of regularity and efficiency; various organs of the reforming Ottoman state developed elaborate temporal constructs in which clocks played an increasingly important role. As the reform movement spread beyond the government apparatus; emerging groups of officers; bureaucrats; and urban professionals incorporated novel time-related ideas; values; and behaviors into their self-consciously “modern” outlook and lifestyle. Acculturated in the highly regimented environment of schools and barracks; they came to identify efficiency and temporal regularity with progress and the former temporal patterns with the old political order. Drawing on a wealth of archival and literary sources; Wishnitzer’s original and highly important work presents the shifting culture of time as an arena in which Ottoman social groups competed for legitimacy and a medium through which the very concept of modernity was defined. Reading Clocks; Alla Turca breaks new ground in the study of the Middle East and presents us with a new understanding of the relationship between time and modernity._x000D_ The most influential work on Buddhism to be published in the nineteenth century; Introduction à l’histoire du Buddhisme indien; by the great French scholar of Sanskrit Eugène Burnouf; set the course for the academic study of Buddhism—and Indian Buddhism in particular—for the next hundred years. First published in 1844; the masterwork was read by some of the most important thinkers of the time; including Schopenhauer and Nietzsche in Germany and Emerson and Thoreau in America.Katia Buffetrille and Donald S. Lopez Jr.’s expert English translation; Introduction to the History of Indian Buddhism; provides a clear view of how the religion was understood in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Burnouf was an impeccable scholar; and his vision; especially of the Buddha; continues to profoundly shape our modern understanding of Buddhism. In reintroducing Burnouf to a new generation of Buddhologists; Buffetrille and Lopez have revived a seminal text in the history of Orientalism._x000D_ Americans have long acknowledged a deep connection between evangelical religion and democracy in the early days of the republic. This is a widely accepted narrative that is maintained as a matter of fact and tradition—and in spite of evangelicalism’s more authoritarian and reactionary aspects.In Conceived in Doubt; Amanda Porterfield challenges this standard interpretation of evangelicalism’s relation to democracy and describes the intertwined relationship between religion and partisan politics that emerged in the formative era of the early republic. In the 1790s; religious doubt became common in the young republic as the culture shifted from mere skepticism toward darker expressions of suspicion and fear. But by the end of that decade; Porterfield shows; economic instability; disruption of traditional forms of community; rampant ambition; and greed for land worked to undermine heady optimism about American political and religious independence. Evangelicals managed and manipulated doubt; reaching out to disenfranchised citizens as well as to those seeking political influence; blaming religious skeptics for immorality and social distress; and demanding affirmation of biblical authority as the foundation of the new American national identity.As the fledgling nation took shape; evangelicals organized aggressively; exploiting the fissures of partisan politics by offering a coherent hierarchy in which God was king and governance righteous. By laying out this narrative; Porterfield demolishes the idea that evangelical growth in the early republic was the cheerful product of enthusiasm for democracy; and she creates for us a very different narrative of influence and ideals in the young republic._x000D_ When Pope Francis recently answered “Who am I to judge?” when asked about homosexuality; he ushered in a new era for the Catholic church. A decade ago; it would have been unthinkable for a pope to express tolerance for homosexuality. Yet shifts of this kind are actually common in the history of Christian groups. Within the United States; Christian leaders have regularly revised their teachings to match the beliefs and opinions gaining support among their members and larger society. Mark A. Smith provocatively argues that religion is not nearly the unchanging conservative influence in American politics that we have come to think it is. In fact; in the long run; religion is best understood as responding to changing political and cultural values rather than shaping them. Smith makes his case by charting five contentious issues in America’s history: slavery; divorce; homosexuality; abortion; and women’s rights. For each; he shows how the political views of even the most conservative Christians evolved in the same direction as the rest of society—perhaps not as swiftly; but always on the same arc. During periods of cultural transition; Christian leaders do resist prevailing values and behaviors; but those same leaders inevitably acquiesce—often by reinterpreting the Bible—if their positions become no longer tenable. Secular ideas and influences thereby shape the ways Christians read and interpret their scriptures. So powerful are the cultural and societal norms surrounding us that Christians in America today hold more in common morally and politically with their atheist neighbors than with the Christians of earlier centuries. In fact; the strongest predictors of people’s moral beliefs are not their religious commitments or lack thereof but rather when and where they were born. A thoroughly researched and ultimately hopeful book on the prospects for political harmony; Secular Faith demonstrates how; over the long run; boundaries of secular and religious cultures converge._x000D_ On Thursday; July 13; 1995; Chicagoans awoke to a blistering day in which the temperature would reach 106 degrees. The heat index; which measures how the temperature actually feels on the body; would hit 126 degrees by the time the day was over. Meteorologists had been warning residents about a two-day heat wave; but these temperatures did not end that soon. When the heat wave broke a week later; city streets had buckled; the records for electrical use were shattered; and power grids had failed; leaving residents without electricity for up to two days. And by July 20; over seven hundred people had perished-more than twice the number that died in the Chicago Fire of 1871; twenty times the number of those struck by Hurricane Andrew in 1992—in the great Chicago heat wave; one of the deadliest in American history. Heat waves in the United States kill more people during a typical year than all other natural disasters combined. Until now; no one could explain either the overwhelming number or the heartbreaking manner of the deaths resulting from the 1995 Chicago heat wave. Meteorologists and medical scientists have been unable to account for the scale of the trauma; and political officials have puzzled over the sources of the city's vulnerability. In Heat Wave; Eric Klinenberg takes us inside the anatomy of the metropolis to conduct what he calls a social autopsy;" examining the social; political; and institutional organs of the city that made this urban disaster so much worse than it ought to have been. Starting with the question of why so many people died at home alone; Klinenberg investigates why some neighborhoods experienced greater mortality than others; how the city government responded to the crisis; and how journalists; scientists; and public officials reported on and explained these events. Through a combination of years of fieldwork; extensive interviews; and archival research; Klinenberg uncovers how a number of surprising and unsettling forms of social breakdown—including the literal and social isolation of seniors; the institutional abandonment of poor neighborhoods; and the retrenchment of public assistance programs—contributed to the high fatality rates. The human catastrophe; he argues; cannot simply be blamed on the failures of any particular individuals or organizations. For when hundreds of people die behind locked doors and sealed windows; out of contact with friends; family; community groups; and public agencies; everyone is implicated in their demise. As Klinenberg demonstrates in this incisive and gripping account of the contemporary urban condition; the widening cracks in the social foundations of American cities that the 1995 Chicago heat wave made visible have by no means subsided as the temperatures returned to normal. The forces that affected Chicago so disastrously remain in play in America's cities; and we ignore them at our peril. For the Second Edition Klinenberg has added a new Preface showing how climate change has made extreme weather events in urban centers a major challenge for cities and nations across our planet; one that will require commitment to climate-proofing changes to infrastructure rather than just relief responses.