Author: Kalle Kananoja (University of Oulu, Finland) Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2021 In this ambitious analysis of medical encounters in Central and West Africa during the era of the Atlantic […]
[Virtual Exhibit] Cipher Discs: Renaissance Encryption Machines
Launched by Carnegie Mellon University Libraries, this online exhibit—a playful experiment in shortform, interactive exhibition design—explains what cipher discs are and how to use them. Cipher discs are paper encryting […]
[New Book] The Marvels of the World: An Anthology of Nature Writing Before 1700
Editor: Rebecca Bushnell (University of Pennsylvania) Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press Long before the Romantics embraced nature, people in the West saw the human and nonhuman worlds as both intimately […]
[New Book] A User’s Guide to Melancholy
Author: Mary Ann Lund (University of Leicester) Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2021 A User’s Guide to Melancholy takes Robert Burton’s encyclopaedic masterpiece The Anatomy of Melancholy (first published in 1621) […]
[CFP] Towards a Global History of Soil: Sciences, Practices, Materialities, and Mobilities, 1100–1700
This conference at Max Planck Institute for the History of Science will explore the scientific, practical, and material culture of soil in the premodern world. Developed in conjunction with MPIWG’s research group […]
[New Book] Magic, Science, and Religion in Early Modern Europe
Author: Mark A. Waddell (Michigan University State) Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2021 From the recovery of ancient ritual magic at the height of the Renaissance to the ignominious demise of […]
[New Book] Women, Philosophy and Science: Italy and Early Modern Europe
Editors: Sabrina Ebbersmeyer (University of Copenhagen) & Gianni Paganini (Università del Piemonte Orientale) Publisher: Springer, 2020 This book sheds light on the originality and historical significance of women’s philosophical, moral, […]
[New Book] Kepler’s New Star (1604): Context and Controversy
Editor: Patrick J. Boner (CUA, Washington DC) Publisher: Brill, 2020 The supernova of 1604 marks a major turning point in the cosmological crisis of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Capturing […]
[CFP] Fire Management in the Early Modern Age: Knowledge, Technology, Economy
The aim of the workshop Fire Management in the Early Modern Age: Knowledge, Technology, Economy (University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland) is to reflect on the question of fire management in the […]
[New Book] Thinking on Earthquakes in Early Modern Europe: Firm Beliefs on Shaky Ground
Author: Rienk Vermij (University of Oklahoma) Publisher: Routledge, 2020 This book is the first extensive study of ideas on earthquakes before the Lisbon earthquake in 1755. The earthquake had a […]