Book by Arthur Beer

A critique by Oskar K. Rabinowicz

With this book, Dr. Cecil Roth upsets previous theories on the origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls. From a study of all the historical evidence now available, he concludes that the Scrolls were from the library of the Zealots, an ultraorthodox, warlike Jewish...

Long neglected by historians, the concept of cultural history has in the last few decades come to the fore of historical research into early modern Europe. Due in no small part to the pioneering work of Peter Burke, the tools of the cultural historian...

Music pervades the soul of Venice as surely as its canals penetrate the heart of the city. From Gabrieli, Monteverdi, Vivaldi, and Rossini to Verdi, Wagner, and Stravinsky, this great city has inspired and sheltered genius. Venice is a city in which...

Conventionally, ``absolutism'' in early-modern Europe has suggested unfettered autocracy and despotism -- the erosion of rights, the centralisation of decision-making, the loss of liberty. Everything, in a word, that was un-British but characteristic of...

"Literacy in Early Modern Europe" is an analysis of that momentous change in European society from widespread illiteracy in 1500 to mass literacy by 1800. The book explores the importance of education, literacy and popular culture in Europe during this...