The Reopening of the Western Mind
The Resurgence of Intellectual Life from the End of Antiquity to the Dawn of the Enlightenment
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Charles Freeman, lauded historical scholar and author of The Closing of the Western Mind (“A triumph”—The Times [London]), explores the rebirth of Western thought in the centuries that followed the demise of the classical era. As the dominance of Christian teachings gradually subsided over time, a new open-mindedness made way for the ideas of morality and theology, and fueled and formed the backbone of the Western mind of the late Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and beyond.
In this wide-ranging history, Freeman follows the immense intellectual development that culminated in the Enlightenment, from political ideology to philosophy and theology, as well as the fine arts and literature. He writes, in vivid detail, of how Europeans progressed from the Christian-minded thinking of Saint Augustine to the more open-minded later scholars, such as Michel de Montaigne, leading to a broader, more “humanist” way of thinking.
He explores how the discovery of America fundamentally altered European conceptions of humanity, religion, and science; how the rise of Protestantism and the Reformation profoundly influenced the tenor of politics and legal systems, with enormous repercussions; and how the radical Christianity of philosophers such as Spinoza affected a rethinking of the concept of religious tolerance that has influenced the modern era ever since.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
February 7, 2023 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593550953
- File size: 795500 KB
- Duration: 27:37:17
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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December 5, 2022
Historian Freeman (The Closing of the Western Mind) skillfully plows through substantial ground in this doorstop of an intellectual history of Western Europe. Freeman traces key shifts in intellectual development from the end of the Roman Empire in 500 CE to the early Enlightenment, including theological, philosophical, political, and artistic arcs, meticulously following the threads of classical Greek and Roman thinkers as they became woven into the fabric of Western thought, from Thomas Aquinas’s embrace of Aristotle to Italian Renaissance humanists’ revival of Plato. Freeman also reminds readers of the gap in transmission of thought during early medieval times, when few written texts existed to preserve knowledge. As well, readers are guided through the development of the printing press, which the author notes revolutionized the transmission of knowledge (though didn’t immediately allow for flourishing intellectual thought), and how the Catholic church “reasserted itself globally” beginning in the 16th century, with Freeman drawing on a dizzying number of sources (and including color illustrations plus an extensive bibliography). General readers may be overwhelmed by the breadth and depth, but specialists will delight in the considered, comprehensive details of Western European triumphs, discoveries, and setbacks. As ambitious as it is informative, this will have historians of all stripes rapt.
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