Synopses & Reviews
The rosary has been nearly ubiquitous among Roman Catholics since its first appearance in Europe five centuries ago. Why has this particular devotional object been so resilient, especially in the face of Catholicisms reinvention in the Early Modern, or “Counter-Reformation,” Era? Nathan D. Mitchell argues in lyric prose that to understand the rosarys adaptability, it is essential to consider the changes Catholicism itself began to experience in the aftermath of the Reformation.
Unlike many other scholars of this period, Mitchell argues that after the Reformation Catholicism actually became less retrenched and more open to change. This innovation was especially evident in the sometimes “subversive” visual representations of sacred subjects and in new ways of perceiving the relation between Catholic devotion and the liturgys ritual symbols. The rosary played a crucial role not only in how Catholics gave flesh to their faith, but in new ways of constructing their personal and collective identity. Ultimately, Mitchell employs the history of the rosary as a lens through which to better understand early modern Catholic history.
Review
"Mitchell (Univ. of Notre Dame) offers a valuable new addition to his corpus of work on bottom-up Catholic spirituality and its attendant sense of spiritual mystery. Here he provides and insightful reframing of Catholic identity after the Council of Trent, demonstrating how very soon after the Council's rigorously magisterial Counter-Reformation agenda ended, a new and overlooked sense of Catholic spirituality emerged during the late 16th and 17th centuries."-CHOICE,
Review
“In this truly remarkable work, from both scholarly and practical perspectives, Mitchell clearly articulates the central role of a unique devotion in the life of the Roman Catholic Church. . . . In providing a solid historical foundation, Mitchell also shows how art, liturgy, and ritual have influenced and been influenced by this prayer over the past five centuries.”-Library Journal,
Review
“In this dazzling venture in ‘reframing, what could have been a nostalgic revisiting of a traditional devotion has, instead, been rendered a masterful reflection on Catholic identity and imagination. With all the prowess of an accomplished scholar, the ear of a poet, and the soul of an artist, Nathan Mitchell leads us from Caravaggio to Rahner, Erasmus to Vatican II with singular aplomb and dexterity. This case study in early modern Catholicism will reshape your understanding of post-Tridentine Catholicism, as well as the powerful Marian devotion which helped transform it.”-Edward Foley,Catholic Theological Union
Review
“Mitchell has demonstrated that religion is sustained and communicated not primarily by creeds and dogmatic statements, but by art and architecture as well as by other symbols, rituals, stories, myths and metaphors. This book sheds much needed light on the contemporary Catholic Church. . . . The brilliant discussion of Caravaggios work alone is worth the price of the book!”-Kevin Seasoltz,author of A Sense of the Sacred: Theological Foundations of Sacred Architecture
Review
“Mitchell draws upon contemporary historical scholarship, as well as the pioneering work of an older generation of historians like H. Outram-Evennett and John Bossy, to demonstrate the positive and innovative side of the Counter-Reformation, an aspect that he says came to the surface especially in the quarter century between 1585 and 1610.”-America: The National Catholic Weekly,
Synopsis
Ever since its appearance in Europe five centuries ago, the rosary has been a widespread, highly visible devotion among Roman Catholics. Its popularity has persisted despite centuries of often seismic social upheaval, cultural change, and institutional reform. In form, the rosary consists of a ritually repeated sequence of prayers accompanied by meditations on episodes in the lives of Christ and Mary. As a devotional object of round beads strung on cord or wire, the rosary has changed very little since its introduction centuries ago. Today, the rosary can be found on virtually every continent, and in the hands of hard-line traditionalists as well as progressive Catholics. It is beloved by popes, professors, protesters, commuters on their way to work, children learning their "first prayers," and homeless persons seeking shelter and safety.
Why has this particular devotional object been so ubiquitous and resilient, especially in the face of Catholicism's reinvention in the Early Modern, or "Counter-Reformation," Era? Nathan D. Mitchell argues in lyric prose that to understand the rosary's adaptability, it is essential to consider the changes Catholicism itself began to experience in the aftermath of the Reformation.
Unlike many other scholars of this period, Mitchell argues that after the Reformation Catholicism actually became more innovative and diversified rather than retrenched and monolithic. This innovation was especially evident in the sometimes "subversive"; visual representations of sacred subjects, such as in the paintings of Caravaggio, and in new ways of perceiving the relation between Catholic devotion and the liturgy's ritual symbols. The rosary was thus involved not only in how Catholics gave flesh to their faith, but in new ways of constructing their personal and collective identity. Ultimately, Mitchell employs the history of the rosary, and the concomitant devotion to the Virgin Mary with which it is associated, as a lens through which to better understand early modern Catholic history.
Synopsis
Few questions of history have as many contemporary political implications as this deceptively simple one: how did capitalism come to be?
In this clarifying work, Ellen Meiksins Wood refutes most existing accounts of the origin of capitalism, which, she argues, fail to recognize capitalism's distinctive attributes as a social system, making it seem a culmination of a natural human inclination to sell and buy.
Wood begins with searching assessments of classical thinkers ranging from Adam Smith to Max Weber. She then explores the great Marxist debates among writers such as Paul Sweezy, Maurice Dobb, Robert Brenner, Perry Anderson, and E. P. Thompson. She concludes with her own account of capitalism's agrarian origin, challenging the association of capitalism with cities, the identification of "capitalist" with "bourgeois," and conceptions of modernity and postmodernity derived from those assumptions.
Only with a proper understanding of capitalism's beginning, Wood concludes, can we imagine the possibility of it ending.
About the Author
Ellen Meiksins Wood is co-editor of Monthly Review; author of many books, including The Pristine Culture of Capitalism (1991) and Democracy Against Capitalism (1995); and co-editor of In Defense of History (1995).