A Cultural History of Ideas in the Medieval Age

PRAISE FOR A CULTURAL HISTORY OF IDEAS: VOLUMES 1-6

A 2024 CHOICE OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC TITLE

2023 AAP PROSE AWARDS WINNER: BEST HUMANITIES REFERENCE WORK

This volume of A Cultural History of Ideas examines the roughly thousand years, from the end of the Roman Empire to the cusp of the Reformation, which make up the Middle Ages. Each chapter investigates the ideas and practices associated with a specific theme— knowledge, the human self, ethics, politics, nature, religion, rhetoric, art, and history—in order to reveal the tangle of social, cultural, and religious factors that shaped, and were shaped by, medieval intellectual life. Central to this project is the need to read against the grain, revealing the limits and suppressions in both the medieval sources themselves and more recent scholarship on the period. Taken together, these nine essays, written from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, depict the complexities of medieval life and thought, their unique characteristics, and their influence on subsequent centuries.

The 6-volume set A Cultural History of Ideas is part of The Cultural Histories Series. Titles are available in print for individuals or for libraries needing just one subject or preferring a tangible reference for their shelves or as part of a fully-searchable digital library. The digital product is available to institutions by annual subscription or on perpetual access via www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com. Individual volumes for academics and researchers interested in specific historical periods are also available in print or digitally via www.bloomsburycollections.com.