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Here a distinguished American historian challenges the belief that the eighteenth century was essentially modern in its temper. In crystalline prose Carl Becker demonstrates that the period commonly described as the Age of Reason was, in fact, very far from that; that Voltaire, Hume, Diderot, and Locke were living in a medieval world, and that these philosophers "demolished the Heavenly City of St. Augustine only to rebuild it with more up-to-date materials." In a new foreword, Johnson Kent Wright looks at the book's continuing relevance within the context of current discussion about the Enlightenment.

"Will remain a classic--a beautifully finished literary product."--Charles A. Beard, American Historical Review

"The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers remains one of the most distinctive American contributions to the historical literature on the Enlightenment. . . . [It] is likely to beguile and provoke readers for a long time to come."--Johnson Kent Wright, from the foreword

Renaissance Configurations is a ground-breaking collection of essays on the structures and strategies of Early Modern culture - as embodied in issues of gender, sexuality and politics - by a group of critics from the new generation of Early Modern specialists. The essays focus on the relations of public and private, of verbal and spatial, of textual and material, reading and re-reading texts, both canonical and non-canonical, with a textual and historical rigour often considered lacking in work with theoretical premises. The collection as a whole offers a clear sense of the direction to be taken by Early Modern studies over the next decade.

Een kamerhuurder vertoont verontrustende trekjes, die Jack the Ripper in gedachten roepen.

Een jongeman verlaat in verwarde toestand zijn huis om zich in het volle leven te storten.

De samenstelsters haalden allerlei lekkere gerechten uit de boeken van Annie M.G. Schmidt en geven daarvan de recepten, zodat je die ook eens zelf kunt maken. Met zwart-witte en gekleurde tekeningen. Vanaf ca. 10 jaar.

The masterwork of an entomological pioneer

At a time when few women were educated or literate – and rarely travelled – German-born naturalist and artist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717) made history with her studies of insects in Surinam. Trained as a copperplate engraver and watercolorist, she documented the metamorphosis of butterflies, laying the foundation for modern entomology. What Merian observed when breeding native species of butterfly triggered her curiosity, and spurred her to further investigation; the development from ovum, via larva and chrysalis, to adult butterfly was not fully understood in the 17th century. And not every pupa developed into a butterfly, which puzzled Merian for a long time.

On seeing a collection of butterflies from Dutch Guiana, modern Surinam, she decided to study tropical flora and fauna, to discover whether the moths and butterflies she saw in collections shared the same life cycle as those she had bred: the egg and caterpillar stage. In 1699 she sailed for South America with daughter Dorothea, the first time any woman had ventured on a journey of exploration on this scale. Having evaluated and categorized her specimens, in 1705 she published her major work Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, in Dutch and Latin. She made 60 copperplate engravings to illustrate the stages of insect development, arranged around the cultivated and wild plants she had encountered on her travels. With its detailed text and imagery, the Metamorphosis is the first work on the natural history of Surinam. For 17th century Europeans it was an insight into an unknown world. TASCHEN’s reprint of a hand-colored first edition copy includes the complete plates with a commentary by Katharina Schmidt-Loske. Merian accomplished a pioneering achievement of the modern age. This publication pays homage to her work and offers readers an opportunity to appreciate her sumptuous engravings.

Tibetaans boeddhistische visie op de omgang met dood en sterven.

Al het wetenswaardige over 400 inheemse en buitenlandse medicinale planten. Het herkennen, verzamelen, toebereiden en doelmatig gebruiken. De nieuwste gegevens over de stoffen die de planten bevatten, over de genezende werking en de bijwerkingen. Beproefde oude en nieuwe recepten voor baden, kruidenthee, kompressen en inhalaties. Gebruik en dosering in de homeopathie. 500 kleurenfoto’s en tekeningen van de planten.

Andrej Platonov schrijft met een meesterlijke mengeling van satire, symboliek en ironie. De verhalen van Platonov kenmerken zich stuk voor stuk door zijn uit laconieke humor en berusting samengestelde toon. Met gevoel voor absurdisme geeft hij de strubbelingen van de realiteit in de Sovjet-Unie weer en weet zo, met zeer concrete, grijpbare gegevens en situaties, grotere thema’s aan de orde te stellen. Het platonoviaanse proza is ten diepste doordrongen van de gedachte dat de mens streeft naar geluk, dat niet per definitie voortkomt uit vooruitgang en techniek, zoals de communistische leer voorschrijft. Maar dat weerhield Platonov er niet van het idealisme en de voorvechters van de revolutie in al hun schakeringen te laten zien. Zijn verhalen werpen de vraag op wie macht uitoefent over wie en op welke grond, en wat meer waard is: intellect of praktisch inzicht? Platonov was impliciet kritisch tegenover het Sovjetregime in zijn verhalen, novellen en romans waardoor die in zijn eigen land maar nauwelijks te lezen waren. Pas ver na de dood van Stalin kreeg zijn werk de internationale bekendheid dat het verdient.