Synopses & Reviews
Exploring a chapter not yet probed in the cultural history of the West,
The Strait Gate demonstrates how doors, gates, and related technologies such as the key and the lock have shaped the way we perceive and navigate the domestic and urban spaces that surround us in our everyday lives. Janduuml;tte reveals how doors have served as sites of power, exclusion, and inclusionandmdash;and, by extension, as metaphors for salvationandmdash;in the course of Western history.
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This book makes it clear that doors, more than any other parts of the house, are the objects onto which we project our ideas of and anxieties about security, privacy, and shelter. Without doors, of course, houses could not exist. But even though we each walk through doorways well over a hundred times a day, we typically pay little attention to the doors we encounter. We regard them simply as a means of entering or leaving a building or room. Yet when our doors stop working as they shouldandmdash;when we find that we cannot lock or open them, for instanceandmdash;we react with discomfort and anxiety.
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Drawing on a wide range of archival, literary, and visual sources, as well as on research literature across various disciplines and languages, Janduuml;tte pays particular attention to the history of the practices that have developed over the centuries in order to handle and control doors in everyday life.
Review
"An important, widely researched, and fascinating contribution to our understanding of both early modern European history and Jewish history."—Natalie Zemon Davis
Review
“This outstanding and in many ways path-breaking work is a remarkable example of careful and detailed engagement with a wide range of scholarship and creative and careful attention to both familiar and little-discussed sources. As such, it will be a valuable resource for scholars in many fields, and it helps to further the study of early modern Jewish history, early modern science, and the culture of the early modern world.”—Dean Phillip Bell,
Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
Review
"Daniel Jütte masterfully reveals a forgotten economy where secrets were prized, prestigious commodities rather than causes of anxiety, suspicion, or outrage.
The Age of Secrecy is a major contribution to early modern history, Jewish history, and the history of knowledge."—David Armitage, Harvard University
Review
"Part complementary history of the early modern Judiasm, part history of knowledge, this remarkable book opens our eyes to a central, if far too often ignored, dimension of European history that periodizes the history of the period in a novel and riveting way."—Peter Galison, Harvard University
Review
"Daniel Jütte’s
Age of Secrecy uncloaks the foundational role played by the arcane in the constitution of early modern knowledge. Look closely into hidden but knowable things, Jütte shows, and you will see a hidden but absolutely crucial world that did not collapse with what we know of as the scientific revolution. It did not even fold with the Enlightenment. Part complementary history of the early modern Judaism, part history of knowledge, this remarkable book opens our eyes to a central, if far too often ignored, dimension of European history that periodizes the history of the period in a novel and riveting way."—Peter Galison, Harvard University
Review
andldquo;An engrossing and powerfully illuminating history of our most intimate surroundings.andrdquo;andmdash;Joseph Koerner, Harvard University
Review
andldquo;A wide-open book, erudite, deep, nimble, graceful and fun.andrdquo;andmdash; Thomas V. Cohen, York University
Review
andldquo;This is a splendid work of cultural history.andnbsp; By examining the vast array of overt and hidden meanings that came to be attached to doors in early modern Europe, the author provides an enticing gateway to a rarely considered aspect of pre-modern life.andrdquo;andmdash;Christopher R. Friedrichs, University of British Columbia
Synopsis
The fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries were truly an Age of Secrecy in Europe, when arcane knowledge was widely believed to be positive knowledge that extended into all areas of daily life, from the economic, scientific, and political spheres to the general activities of ordinary people.
So asserts Daniel Jütte in this engrossing, vivid, and award-winning work. He maintains that the widespread acceptance and even reverence for this “economy of secrets” in premodern Europe created a highly complex and sometimes perilous space for mutual contact between Jews and Christians. Surveying the interactions between the two religious groups in a wide array of secret sciences and practices—including alchemy, cryptography, medical arcana, technological and military secrets, and intelligence—the author relates true stories of colorful “professors of secrets” and clandestine encounters. In the process Jütte examines how our current notion of secrecy is radically different in this era of WikiLeaks, Snowden, et al., as opposed to centuries earlier when the truest, most important knowledge was generally considered to be secret by definition.
Synopsis
A prize-winning scholar offers a sweeping exploration of the role doors have played in history
About the Author
Daniel Jütte is currently a junior fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows and a lecturer in the Department of History at Harvard. Jeremiah Riemer is an esteemed translator whose most recent translation from German is Michael Brenner’s A Short History of the Jews.