Who or what makes innovation spread? Ten case-studies from Greco-Roman Antiquity and the early modern period address human and non-human agency in innovation. Was Erasmus the ‘superspreader’ of the use of New Ancient Greek? How did a special type of clamp contribute to architectural innovation in Delphi? What agents helped diffuse a new festival culture in the eastern parts of the Roman empire? How did a context of status competition between scholars and poets at the Ptolemaic court help deify a lock of hair? Examples from different societal domains illuminate different types of agency in historical innovation.

Modernity has historically defined itself by relation to classical antiquity on the one hand, and the medieval on the other. While early modernity’s relation to Antiquity has been amply documented, its relation to the medieval has been less studied. This volume seeks to address this omission by presenting some preliminary explorations of this field. In seventeen essays ranging from the Italian Renaissance to Enlightenment France, it focuses on three main themes: continuities and discontinuities between the medieval and early modern, early modern re-uses of medieval matter, and conceptualizations of the medieval. Collectively, the essays illustrate how early modern medievalisms differ in important respects from post-Romantic views of the medieval, ultimately calling for a re-definition of the concept of medievalism itself. Contributors include: Mette Bruun, Peter Damian-Grint, Anne-Marie De Gendt, Daphne Hoogenboezem, Tiphaine Karsenti, Joost Keizer, Waldemar Kowalski, Elena Lombardi, Coen Maas, Pieter Mannaerts, Christoph Pieper, Jacomien Prins, Adam Shear, Paul Smith, Martin Spies, Andrea Worm, and Aurélie Zygel-Basso.

In this, the first comprehensive survey of the economies of classical antiquity, twenty-eight chapters summarise the current state of scholarship in their specialised fields and sketch new directions for research. They reflect a new interest in economic growth in antiquity and develop new methods for measuring economic development, often combining textual and archaeological data that have previously been treated separately.

A full-scale historical treatment of the advent of printing and its importance as an agent of change, first published in 1980.

For review see: Stephen J. Homick, in The Hispanic Historical Review (HAHR), vol. 77, no. 1 (February 1997); p. 78-80.

By far the most influential work on the history of the body, across a wide range of academic disciplines, remains that of Thomas Laqueur. This book puts on trial the one-sex/two-sex model of Laqueur's Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud through a detailed exploration of the ways in which two classical stories of sexual difference were told, retold and remade from the mid-sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Agnodike, the 'first midwife' who disguises herself as a man and then exposes herself to her potential patients, and Phaethousa, who grows a beard after her husband leaves her, are stories from the ancient world that resonated in the early modern period in particular. Tracing the reception of these tales shows how they provided continuity despite considerable change in medicine, being the common property of those on different sides of professional disputes about women's roles in both medicine and midwifery. The study reveals how different genres used these stories, changing their characters and plots, but always invoking the authority of the classics in discussions of sexual identity. The study raises important questions about the nature of medical knowledge, the relationship between texts and observation, and the understanding of sexual difference in the early modern world beyond the one-sex model.

In the midst of a global pandemic, the Frankfurt POLY (Polycentricity and Plurality of Premodern Christianities) Lectures on "Pathways through Early Modern Christianities" brought together a virtual, global community of scholars and students in the Spring and Summer of 2021 to discuss the fascinating nature of early modern religious life. In this book, eleven pathbreaking scholars from the "four corners" of the early modern world reflect on the analytical tools that structure their field and that they have developed, revised and embraced in their scholarship: from generations to tolerance, from uniformity to publicity, from accommodation to local religion, from polycentrism to connected histories, and from identity to object agency. Together, the chapters of this reference work help both students and advanced researchers alike to appreciate the extent of our current knowledge about early modern christianities in their interconnected global context—and what exciting new travels could lie ahead.

If the task of constitutional theory is to set out a language in which the discourse of constitutional law may be grounded, a question of the utmost importance is how this terminology is created, defined and interpreted. In this groundbreaking new work, András Jakab maps out and analyses the grammar and vocabulary on which the core European traditions of constitutional theory are based. He suggests understanding key constitutional concepts as responses to historical and present day challenges experienced by European societies. Drawing together a great and diverse range of literature, much of which has never before been touched upon by scholarship in the English language, Jakab reconceptualises and argues for a new understanding of European constitutional law discourse. In so doing he shines new light on what constitutes its distinctively European nature. This remarkable book is essential reading for all scholars and students of constitutional theory in Europe and beyond.

Based on the highly successful A History of Western Society, Understanding Western Society: A Brief History captures students’ interest in the everyday life of the past and ties social history to the broad sweep of politics and culture. Abridged by 30%, the narrative is paired with innovative pedagogy, designed to help students focus on significant developments as they read and review. An innovative, three-step end-of-Chapter study guide helps students master key facts and move toward synthesis.