Prosperity and Plunder : European Catholic Monasteries in the Age of Revolution, 1650-1815
Editorial Reviews
Review
'A major revision of a central area of scholarship ... This is a study of the first importance for the period, and no one writing in the future will be able to ignore it. It is also very attractively written: concise, lucid and cogent.' Professor Tim Blanning, University of Cambridge
'Derek Beale's Prosperity and Plunder, beautifully produced and illustrated, is as elegiac a book as I have read in ages. I was informed, saddened and enraged in equal proportions.' John Morrill, BBC History Magazine
'... this is a book which should be read by any historian or general reader who supposes monasteries to be dull, inert institutions, cut off from their political and social settings.' Times Literary Supplement
Book Description
In the Catholic countries of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Europe, communities of monks and nuns were growing in number and wealth. They constructed vast buildings, dominated education, and played a large part in the practice and patronage of learning, music, and the arts. This lavishly-illustrated book offers a unique, comparative description of these communities--their wealth, growth, life, and importance--and then explains their catastrophic decline and fall between 1650 and 1815 by reforming rulers, the 'Enlightenment', and the French Revolution. Derek Beales, Professor Emeritus of Modern History, Cambridge, is a Fellow of both the Royal Historical Society and the British Academy. He has published numerous historical monographs including a book on musical history entitled, Mozart and the Habsburgs (Reeding, 1993) as well as articles in the New York Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement.
Prosperity and Plunder : European Catholic Monasteries in the Age of Revolution, 1650-1815
Prosperity and Plunder: European Catholic Monasteries in the Age of Revolution, 1650-1815,Derek Beales,Cambridge University Press,0521590906,Christianity - History - Catholic,Europe,Europe - General,History,History - General History,Modern - 17th Century,Monasticism and religious orde,Monasticism and religious orders,Religion,European history: c 1500 to c 1750,European history: c 1750 to c 1900,History / Europe / General,History of art & design styles: c 1600 to c 1800,History of religion,Social history
Books Report:
Recommended Books