Category Archives: Books

Brill’s History of European Political and Constitutional Thought Series is delighted to announce the publication of two new exciting volumes in intellectual history. Crisis and Renewal in the History of European Political Thought (2021), edited by Cesare Cuttica and László Kontler advances a better, more historical and contextual, manner to consider not only the present, […]

Newly published in Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History is the 3-volume Early Modern Prophecies in Transnational, National and Regional Contexts, edited by Lionel Laborie and Ariel Hessayon. In this important collection of primary sources, Lionel Laborie and Ariel Hessayon bring together a huge range of vital sources for the study of prophecy in the early […]

New Book: Science in an Enchanted World: Philosophy and Witchcraft in the Work of Joseph Glanvill Julie Davies Best known as the Saducismus triumphatus (1681), Joseph Glanvill’s book on witchcraft is among the most frequently published from the seventeenth century, and its arguments for the reality of diabolic witchcraft elicited passionate responses from critics and supporters […]

New Book: Evidence in the Age of the New Sciences Editors: James A. T. Lancaster & Richard Raiswell The motto of the Royal Society—Nullius in verba—was intended to highlight the members’ rejection of received knowledge and the new place they afforded direct empirical evidence in their quest for genuine, useful knowledge about the world. But […]

Victorian Jesus: J.R. Seeley, Religion, and the Cultural Significance of Anonymity Ian Hesketh (UTP, 2017) Ecce Homo: A Survey in the Life and Work of Jesus Christ, published anonymously in 1865, alarmed some readers and delighted others by its presentation of a humanitarian view of Christ and early Christian history. Victorian Jesus explores the relationship […]

The First of the Modern Ottomans: The Intellectual History of Ahmed Vâsıf  By Ethan L. Menchinge (Cambridge University Press, 2017) The First of the Modern Ottomans blends biography with intellectual history. On the one hand, it is the story of an Ottoman life – the life of the scribe, ambassador, and prolific historian Ahmed Vâsıf […]

Einstein and Twentieth-Century Politics: ‘A Salutary Moral Influence’ By Richard Crockatt Einstein and Twentieth Century Politics (Oxford University Press) is the first comprehensive study of his politics, covering his opinions and campaigns on pacifism, Zionism, control of nuclear weapons, world government, freedom, and racial equality. Most studies look at Einstein in isolation but here he […]

New Book: Casanova: Enlightenment philosopher Ed. by Ivo Cerman, Susan Reynolds and Diego Lucci The stereotype of Casanova as a promiscuous and unscrupulous lover has been so pervasive that generations of historians have failed to take serious account of his philosophical legacy. This has recently changed, however, as the publication of the definitive edition of […]