Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Greengrass, “Christendom Destroyed”

Last month, Penguin released Christendom Destroyed: Europe 1517-1648, by 9780670024568Mhistorian Mark Greengrass (University of Sheffield (Emeritus)). The publisher’s description follows:

From peasants to princes, no one was untouched by the spiritual and intellectual upheaval of the sixteenth century. Martin Luther’s challenge to church authority forced Christians to examine their beliefs in ways that shook the foundations of their religion. The subsequent divisions, fed by dynastic rivalries and military changes, fundamentally altered the relations between ruler and ruled. Geographical and scientific discoveries challenged the unity of Christendom as a belief community. Europe, with all its divisions, emerged instead as a geographical projection. Chronicling these dramatic changes, Thomas More, Shakespeare, Montaigne, and Cervantes created works that continue to resonate with us.

Spanning the years 1517 to 1648, Christendom Destroyed is Mark Greengrass’s magnum opus: a rich tapestry that fosters a deeper understanding of Europe’s identity today.

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Upcoming Colloquium: “Toward the Christian Republic”

pelerinOn December 3rd, New York University’s Institute of French Studies will host a lecture by Professor Vicki Caron (Cornell University), “Toward the Christian Republic: The Impact of Vatican Policy on Catholic Antisemitism on the Eve of the Dreyfus Affair.” Details are here.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Dim Drums Throbbing, In the Hills Half Heard

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Today is the 443rd anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto. 

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Baumgarten, “Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz: Men, Women, and Everyday Religious Observance”

In October, the University of Pennsylvania Press will release “Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz: Men, Women, and Everyday Religious Observance” by Elisheva Baumgarten (Hebrew University of Jerusalem). The publisher’s description follows:

In the urban communities of medieval Germany and northern France, the beliefs, observances, and practices of Jews allowed them to create and define their communities on their own terms as well as in relation to the surrounding Christian society. Although medieval Jewish texts were written by a learned elite, the laity also observed many religious rituals as part of their everyday life. In Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz, Elisheva Baumgarten asks how Jews, especially those who were not learned, expressed their belonging to a minority community and how their convictions and deeds were made apparent to both their Jewish peers and the Christian majority.

Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz provides a social history of religious practice in context, particularly with regard to the ways Jews and Christians, separately and jointly, treated their male and female members. Medieval Jews often shared practices and beliefs with their Christian neighbors, and numerous notions and norms were appropriated by one community from the other. By depicting a dynamic interfaith landscape and a diverse representation of believers, Baumgarten offers a fresh assessment of Jewish practice and the shared elements that composed the piety of Jews in relation to their Christian neighbors.

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Cleminson, “Catholicism, Race, and Empire: Eugenics in Portugal, 1900-1950”

In June, the Central European University Press released “Catholicism, Race, and Empire: Eugenics in Portugal, 1900-1950” by Richard Cleminson (University of Leeds). The publisher’s description follows:

cleminson

This monograph places the science and ideology of eugenics in early twentieth century Portugal in the context of manifestations in other countries in the same period. The author argues that three factors limited the impact of eugenics in Portugal: a low level of institutionalization, opposition from Catholics and the conservative nature of the Salazar regime. In Portugal the eugenic science and movement were confined to three expressions: individualized studies on mental health, often from a ‘biotypological’ perspective; a particular stance on racial miscegenation in the context of the substantial Portuguese colonial empire; and a diffuse model of social hygiene, maternity care and puericulture.

This book not only brings to light an eugenics movement hitherto unstudied; it also invites the reader to re-think the relations between northern and southern forms of eugenics, the role of religion, the dynamic capacity of eugenics for finding a home for its theories and the nature of colonialism.

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“Sites of European Antisemitism in the Age of Mass Politics, 1880–1918” (Nemes et al., eds.)

In August, Brandeis University Press will release “Sites of European Antisemitism in the Age of Mass Politics, 1880–1918”, edited by Robert Nemes (Colgate University) and Daniel Unowsky (University of Memphis). The publisher’s description follows:

This innovative collection of essays on the upsurge of antisemitism across Europe in the decades around 1900 shifts the focus away from intellectuals and well-known incidents to less-familiar events, actors, and locations, including smaller towns and villages. This “from below” perspective offers a new look at a much-studied phenomenon: essays link provincial violence and antisemitic politics with regional, state, and even transnational trends. Featuring a diverse array of geographies that include Great Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Romania, Italy, Greece, and the Russian Empire, the book demonstrates the complex interplay of many factors—economic, religious, political, and personal—that led people to attack their Jewish neighbors.

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“Religious Minorities and Cultural Diversity in the Dutch Republic” (den Hollander et al., eds.)

Last month, Brill Publishers released “Religious Minorities and Cultural Diversity in the Dutch Republic,” edited by August den Hollander, Alex Noord, Mirjam van Veen & Anna Voolstra. The publisher’s description follows:

Religious Minorities and Cultural Diversity in the Dutch Republic explores various aspects of the religious and cultural diversity of the early Dutch Republic and analyses how the different confessional groups established their own identity and how their members interacted with one another in a highly hybrid culture.

This volume is to honour Dr. Piet Visser on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Piet Visser has become a leading scholar in the field of the Anabaptist and Mennonite History. Since January 1, 2002, he served as the chair of Anabaptist/Mennonite History and Kindred Spirits at the Doopsgezind Seminarium, VU-University, Amsterdam.

 

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Aly, “Why the Germans? Why the Jews?”

Last month, Macmillan published Why the Germans?  Why the Jews?: Envy, Race Hatred, and the Prehistory of the Holocaust by Götz Aly (University of why the germansVienna).  The publisher’s description follows.

Why the Germans? Why the Jews? Countless historians have grappled with these questions, but few have come up with answers as original and insightful as those of maverick German historian Götz Aly. Tracing the prehistory of the Holocaust from the 1800s to the Nazis’ assumption of power in 1933, Aly shows that German anti-Semitism was—to a previously overlooked extent—driven in large part by material concerns, not racist ideology or religious animosity. As Germany made its way through the upheaval of the Industrial Revolution, the difficulties of the lethargic, economically backward German majority stood in marked contrast to the social and economic success of the agile Jewish minority. This success aroused envy and fear among the Gentile population, creating fertile ground for murderous Nazi politics.

Surprisingly, and controversially, Aly shows that the roots of the Holocaust are deeply intertwined with German efforts to create greater social equality. Redistributing wealth from the well-off to the less fortunate was in many respects a laudable goal, particularly at a time when many lived in poverty. But as the notion of material equality took over the public imagination, the skilled, well-educated Jewish population came to be seen as having more than its fair share. Aly’s account of this fatal social dynamic opens up a new vantage point on the greatest crime in history and is sure to prompt heated debate for years to come.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

A New Biography of Bonhoeffer

Charles Marsh has chosen an apt title for his worthwhile new biography of German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who died in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945. “Strange Glory” is a reference to a passage in one of Bonhoeffer’s sermons on the nature of God. But the phrase also captures the life of Bonhoeffer himself.

In Marsh’s telling, Bonhoeffer was a bundle of contradictions. A pacifist who condemned all violence, he joined a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. A neo-orthodox Lutheran who criticized liberal Protestants for their lack of Reformation rigor, he came to champion the very un-Lutheran idea of monasticism as a way to restore the church. By the end of his life, he was talking about the need for a “religionless” Christianity. He was a mystic who liked fine clothes. Marsh jokes that Bonhoeffer was perhaps the only monk ever to be described by his brothers as a sporty dresser. He could be pompous, arrogant, and childish–solitary and a bit of a misfit.

Yet Bonhoeffer was a genuinely beloved pastor who brought comfort to many, including his fellow prisoners. He was an inspiring, charismatic teacher. He saw, earlier and clearer than most, how Hitler was manipulating Christian imagery to evil purposes. Only two days after Hitler became chancellor, Bonhoeffer gave a radio address condemning Hitler’s offer of a twisted narrative of national redemption in place of the Christian message of salvation. As Marsh writes, Bonhoeffer’s “voluble opposition to Hitler was a stirring counterpoint to the compliant rhetoric of most Protestant ministers, paralyzed as they were by a typical Lutheran veneration of the state.”

And he was exceptionally brave. In 1939, he left Germany for a visiting appointment at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He surely could have remained safely in America for the duration of the war. Indeed, he could have enjoyed the life of a celebrity emigre. But his sense of duty made him return to share in the suffering of his people. Once home, through connections, he managed to install himself in military intelligence, and for years he worked as a double agent, pretending to be a German operative while acting as a spy for the resistance. Eventually the Gestapo caught up with him, and he spent the last two years of his life in prisons and a concentration camp, where he was executed a few weeks before the end of the war.

A professor of religious studies, Marsh spends a great deal of time on Bonhoeffer’s theological writings. He also devotes much attention to the exceptionally close relationship Bonhoeffer had with a former student, Eberhard Bethge. Marsh believes Bonhoeffer had sexual feelings for Bethge, but never acknowledged them, much less acted upon them. (Bonhoeffer became engaged to a woman shortly before being arrested). If Marsh is correct, Bethge was the one love of Bonhoeffer’s life. Marsh makes a good case, but the evidence is circumstantial, and I was left wondering whether his interpretation of the relationship isn’t a bit anachronistic.

The Bethge angle is going to receive a lot of attention, I guess, given our current preoccupations, but it really isn’t the heart of the book. Among theologians, Bonhoeffer is known for his idea of “costly” as opposed to “cheap grace.” Costly grace means discipleship and the Cross, an acceptance of suffering in the name of Christ. Bonhoeffer practiced what he preached, at great personal cost. In this, he was a true Christian–and very rare. As for the contradictions in his life, perhaps he would have worked them out in time. When he died, he was not yet forty.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Burson & Lehner, eds., “Enlightenment and Catholicism in Europe”

This month the University of Notre Dame Press publishes Enlightenment and Enlightenment and Catholicism in EuropeCatholicism in Europe: A Transnational History, what looks to be an extremely interesting collection of essays on the intellectual history of the Enlightenment edited by Jeffrey D. Burson (Georgia Southern University) and Ulrich N. Lehner (Marquette University). The publisher’s description follows.

In recent years, historians have rediscovered the religious dimensions of the Enlightenment. This volume offers a thorough reappraisal of the so-called “Catholic Enlightenment” as a transnational Enlightenment movement. This Catholic Enlightenment was at once ultramontane and conciliarist, sometimes moderate but often surprisingly radical, with participants active throughout Europe in universities, seminaries, salons, and the periodical press.

In Enlightenment and Catholicism in Europe: A Transnational History, the contributors, primarily European scholars, provide intellectual biographies of twenty Catholic Enlightenment figures across eighteenth-century Europe, many of them little known in English-language scholarship on the Enlightenment and pre-revolutionary eras. These figures represent not only familiar French intellectuals of the Catholic Enlightenment but also Iberian, Italian, English, Polish, and German thinkers. The essays focus on the intellectual and cultural factors influencing the lives and works of their subjects, revealing the often global networks of intellectual sociability and reading that united them both to the Catholic Enlightenment and to eighteenth-century policies and projects. The volume, whose purpose is to advance the understanding of a transnational “Catholic Enlightenment,” will be a reliable reference for historians, theologians, and scholars working in religious studies.