Presents a historical overview of the movements and trends in Jewish mysticism including Hekhaloth mysticism, classical and Lurianic Kabbalah, Shabbetai Zevi, and Hasidism, seeking to define and explain how the various currents of tradition throughout the centuries are related. Original.

Poetry. Literary Nonfiction. Essays. Translated by Christopher Middleton. Although he received little recognition during his lifetime, Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) has come to be considered one of Europe's greatest poets. His visionary work--at once local and cosmic--has influenced such figures as Rilke, Heidegger, Celan, and Cixous. This bilingual volume contains translations of thirty-one poems and fourteen letters, as well as an Introduction, Notes, and commentary by the highly regarded poet and translator Christopher Middleton. "This is an extraordinarily rich and powerful selected assemblage of Hölderlin's writings--poems and also letters--bilingual and translated with intense inwardness, situated by accompanying commentary and discussion in both the historical contingency of the poet's Lebenswelt and at the same time in his passional spirit-thinking as it evolves and informs his poetical experiments. There have been many previous versions into English of the most celebrated of these poems, but these here come unmistakably from the imaginative intelligence of another strenuously original poet, at exceedingly close connection with Hölderlin's wrestle with language, its upward reach into the fleeting semi-permanence of the divine presences and its probing downwards into the Germanistic roots of a language-culture at this time in historical and political turbulence. Middleton's full and thorough-going Introduction pre-empts earlier (and later) translation dalliance with spirit-fancy by his rigorous and persistent precision."--J.H. Prynne

From the vantage point of nearly sixty years devoted to research and the writing of history, J. H. Elliott steps back from his work to consider the progress of historical scholarship. From his own experiences as a historian of Spain, Europe, and the Americas, he provides a deft and sharp analysis of the work that historians do and how the field has changed since the 1950s.The author begins by explaining the roots of his interest in Spain and its past, then analyzes the challenges of writing the history of a country other than one's own. In succeeding chapters he offers acute observations on such topics as the history of national and imperial decline, political history, biography, and art and cultural history. Elliott concludes with an assessment of changes in the approach to history over the past half-century, including the impact of digital technology, and argues that a comprehensive vision of the past remains essential. Professional historians, students of history, and those who read history for pleasure will find in Elliott's delightful book a new appreciation of what goes into the shaping of historical works and how those works in turn can shape the world of thought and action.