Clarendon Reconsidered reassesses a figure of major importance in seventeenth-century British politics, constitutional history and literature. Despite his influence in these and other fields, Edward Hyde, first Earl of Clarendon (1609–1674) remains comparatively neglected. However, the recent surge of interest in royalists and royalism, and the new theoretical strategies it has employed, make this a propitious moment to re-examine his influencecontribution. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Chancellor and author of the History of the Rebellion (1702–1704), then and for long afterwards the most sophisticated history written in English, his long career in the service of the Caroline court spanned the English Revolution and Restoration. The original essays in this interdisciplinary collection shine a torch on key aspects of Clarendon’s life and works: his role as a political propagandist, his family and friendship networks, his religious and philosophical inclinations, his history- and essay-writing, his influence on other forms of writing, and the personal, political and literary repercussions of his two long exiles. Pushing the boundaries of the new royalist scholarship, this fresh account of Clarendon reveals a multifaceted man who challenges as often as he justifies traditional characterisations of detached historian and secular statesman.

History from Loss challenges the common thought that "history is written by the winners" and explores how history-makers in different times and places across the globe have written histories from loss, even when this has come at the threat to their own safety. A distinguished group of historians from around the globe offer an introduction to different history-makers’ lives and ideas, and important extracts from their works which highlight various meanings of loss: from physical ailments to social ostracism, exile to imprisonment, and from dispossession to potential execution. Throughout the volume consideration of the information "bubbles" of different times and places helps to show how information has been weaponized to cause harm. In this way, the text helps to put current debates about the biases and weaponization of platforms such as social media into global and historical perspectives. In combination, the chapters build a picture of history from loss which is global, sustained, and anything but a simple mirror of history made by victors. The volume also includes an Introduction and Afterword, which draw out the key meanings of history from loss and which offer ideas for further exploration. History from Loss provides an invaluable resource for students, teachers, and general readers who wish to put current debates on bias, the politicization of history, and threats to history-makers into global and historical perspectives. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Author of plays, love-lyrics, essays and, among other works, The Civil War, the Davideis and the Pindarique Odes, Abraham Cowley made a deep impression on seventeenth-century letters, attested by his extravagant funeral and his burial next to Chaucer and Spenser in Westminster Abbey. Ejected from Cambridge for his politics, he found refuge in royalist Oxford before seeing long service as secretary to Queen Henrietta Maria, and as a Crown agent, on the continent. In the mid-1650s he returned to England, was imprisoned and made an accommodation with the Cromwellian regime. This volume of essays provides the modern critical attention Cowley’s life and writings merit.

The noted economist and philosopher Amartya Sen argues that the dictum “all people are created equal” serves largely to deflect attention from the fact that we differ in age, gender, talents, and physical abilities as well as in material advantages and social background. He argues for concentrating on higher and more basic values: individual capabilities and freedom to achieve objectives. By concentrating on the equity and efficiency of social arrangements in promoting freedoms and capabilities of individuals, Sen adds an important new angle to arguments about such vital issues as gender inequalities, welfare policies, affirmative action, and public provision of health care and education.

It would be easy for the modern reader to conclude that women had no place in the world of early modern espionage, with a few seventeenth-century women spies identified and then relegated to the footnotes of history. If even the espionage carried out by Susan Hyde, sister of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, during the turbulent decades of civil strife in Britain can escape the historiographer's gaze, then how many more like her lurk in the archives? Nadine Akkerman's search for an answer to this question has led to the writing of Invisible Agents, the very first study to analyse the role of early modern women spies, demonstrating that the allegedly-male world of the spy was more than merely infiltrated by women. This compelling and ground-breaking contribution to the history of espionage details a series of case studies in which women -- from playwright to postmistress, from lady-in-waiting to laundry woman -- acted as spies, sourcing and passing on confidential information on account of political and religious convictions or to obtain money or power. The struggle of the She-Intelligencers to construct credibility in their own time is mirrored in their invisibility in modern historiography. Akkerman has immersed herself in archives, libraries, and private collections, transcribing hundreds of letters, breaking cipher codes and their keys, studying invisible inks, and interpreting riddles, acting as a modern-day Spymistress to unearth plots and conspiracies that have long remained hidden by history.

In reviewing and reconsidering the intellectual history of scientism and antiscientism, the authors assess the process of reasoning and prejudices of these contrasting viewpoints, while discussing the repercussions of scientific hegemony and its contemporary criticism. As the second volume of a three-volume set that proposes to reconsider science and technology and explores how the philosophy of science and technology responds to an ever-changing world, this title focuses on ideological trends centering around scientism and anti-scientism since the 19th century. The six chapters look into the emergence of scientism, instrumental reason, scientific optimism, scientific pessimism, scientific crisis and irrationalism and finally the deconstruction of scientism. The authors provide insight into the connections and biases of these disparate views and critiques, explore the influences of the hegemony of science and contemporary critique of science and evaluate the value of postmodernism and deconstructivism. The volume will appeal to scholars and students interested in the philosophy of science and technology, the ideology of scientism and anti-scientism, modernism and postmodernism, Marxist philosophy and topics related to scientific culture.

Although Sir John Hawkins's Life of Johnson has long been an essential source for readers interested in Samuel Johnson, for over two hundred years now Hawkins's biography has been systematically misread, misinterpreted, and misunderstood. Reconsidering Biography opens a long-needed critical debate on Hawkins's achievement as a biographer, and in the process argues for important changes in prevailing scholarly views of Hawkins, Johnson, and English biography itself.

Population Policy Reconsidered brings together a rare combination of scholars, feminists, social activists, and policy-makers across many disciplines to critically reexamine the scientific foundation of contemporary population policies. This book explores population policy dilemmas based on the perspective of ethics, women's empowerment and health, and human rights. The seventeen chapters are centered around the premise that the single-minded pursuit of demographic goals may not be the most effective means of achieving policy objectives--for such may lead to the abuse or violation of choice and human rights, especially of women. Rather, the book explores the alternative idea that population policies should focus on those ultimate aims of development that are linked to human reproduction--health, social empowerment, and human rights. If respectful of individuals, especially women, such policies are likely to promote better individual welfare and may well also result in desirable demographic outcomes.

French philosophy since World War II has been preoccupied with the issue of difference. Specifically, it has wanted to promote or to leave room for ways of living and of being that differ from those usually seen in contemporary Western society. Given the experience of the Holocaust, the motivation for such a preoccupation is not difficult to see. For some thinkers, especially Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, and Gilles Deleuze, this preoccupation has led to a mode of philosophizing that privileges difference as a philosophical category. Nancy privileges difference as a mode of conceiving community, Derrida as a mode of conceiving linguistic meaning, Levinas as a mode of conceiving ethics, and Deleuze as a mode of conceiving ontology. Reconsidering Difference has a twofold task, the primary one critical and the secondary one reconstructive. The critical task is to show that these various privilegings are philosophical failures. They wind up, for reasons unique to each position, endorsing positions that are either incoherent or implausible. Todd May considers the incoherencies of each position and offers an alternative approach. His reconstructive task, which he calls "contingent holism," takes the phenomena under investigation—community, language, ethics, and ontology—and sketches a way of reconceiving them that preserves the motivations of the rejected positions without falling into the problems that beset them.