The Book That Changed Europe: Picart and Bernard's Religious Ceremonies of the World
Two French Protestant refugees in eighteenth-century Amsterdam gave the world an extraordinary work that intrigued and outraged readers across Europe. In this captivating account, Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob, and Wijnand Mijnhardt take us to the vibrant Dutch Republic and its flourishing book trade to explore the work that sowed the radical idea that religions could be considered on equal terms.

Famed engraver Bernard Picart and author and publisher Jean Frederic Bernard produced The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of All the Peoples of the World, which appeared in the first of seven folio volumes in 1723. They put religion in comparative perspective, offering images and analysis of Jews, Catholics, Muslims, the peoples of the Orient and the Americas, Protestants, deists, freemasons, and assorted sects. Despite condemnation by the Catholic Church, the work was a resounding success. For the next century it was copied or adapted, but without the context of its original radicalism and its debt to clandestine literature, English deists, and the philosophy of Spinoza.

Ceremonies and Customs prepared the ground for religious toleration amid seemingly unending religious conflict, and demonstrated the impact of the global on Western consciousness. In this beautifully illustrated book, Hunt, Jacob, and Mijnhardt cast new light on the profound insight found in one book as it shaped the development of a modern, secular understanding of religion.

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The Book That Changed Europe: Picart and Bernard's Religious Ceremonies of the World
Two French Protestant refugees in eighteenth-century Amsterdam gave the world an extraordinary work that intrigued and outraged readers across Europe. In this captivating account, Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob, and Wijnand Mijnhardt take us to the vibrant Dutch Republic and its flourishing book trade to explore the work that sowed the radical idea that religions could be considered on equal terms.

Famed engraver Bernard Picart and author and publisher Jean Frederic Bernard produced The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of All the Peoples of the World, which appeared in the first of seven folio volumes in 1723. They put religion in comparative perspective, offering images and analysis of Jews, Catholics, Muslims, the peoples of the Orient and the Americas, Protestants, deists, freemasons, and assorted sects. Despite condemnation by the Catholic Church, the work was a resounding success. For the next century it was copied or adapted, but without the context of its original radicalism and its debt to clandestine literature, English deists, and the philosophy of Spinoza.

Ceremonies and Customs prepared the ground for religious toleration amid seemingly unending religious conflict, and demonstrated the impact of the global on Western consciousness. In this beautifully illustrated book, Hunt, Jacob, and Mijnhardt cast new light on the profound insight found in one book as it shaped the development of a modern, secular understanding of religion.

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The Book That Changed Europe: Picart and Bernard's <i>Religious Ceremonies of the World</i>

The Book That Changed Europe: Picart and Bernard's Religious Ceremonies of the World

The Book That Changed Europe: Picart and Bernard's <i>Religious Ceremonies of the World</i>

The Book That Changed Europe: Picart and Bernard's Religious Ceremonies of the World

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Overview

Two French Protestant refugees in eighteenth-century Amsterdam gave the world an extraordinary work that intrigued and outraged readers across Europe. In this captivating account, Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob, and Wijnand Mijnhardt take us to the vibrant Dutch Republic and its flourishing book trade to explore the work that sowed the radical idea that religions could be considered on equal terms.

Famed engraver Bernard Picart and author and publisher Jean Frederic Bernard produced The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of All the Peoples of the World, which appeared in the first of seven folio volumes in 1723. They put religion in comparative perspective, offering images and analysis of Jews, Catholics, Muslims, the peoples of the Orient and the Americas, Protestants, deists, freemasons, and assorted sects. Despite condemnation by the Catholic Church, the work was a resounding success. For the next century it was copied or adapted, but without the context of its original radicalism and its debt to clandestine literature, English deists, and the philosophy of Spinoza.

Ceremonies and Customs prepared the ground for religious toleration amid seemingly unending religious conflict, and demonstrated the impact of the global on Western consciousness. In this beautifully illustrated book, Hunt, Jacob, and Mijnhardt cast new light on the profound insight found in one book as it shaped the development of a modern, secular understanding of religion.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780674251496
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication date: 07/31/2010
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 400
File size: 22 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Lynn Hunt is Eugen Weber Professor of Modern European History, University of California, Los Angeles.

Margaret C. Jacob is Distinguished Professor of History, University of California, Los Angeles.

Wijnand Mijnhardt is Chair of Comparative History of the Sciences and the Humanities, Utrecht University.

Table of Contents

Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Illustrations Introduction: One Book, Two Men, and a New Attitude toward Religion Part I. The World of the Book Chapter 1. A Marketplace for Religious Ideas Chapter 2. Bernard Picart: Religious and Artistic Journeys Chapter 3. Why Holland? Chapter 4. Jean Frederic Bernard: The Tumultuous Life of a Refugee Publisher Chapter 5. A Writer’s Mental Universe Chapter 6. Picart’s Visual Politics Part II The Book of the World Chapter 7. Familiarizing Judaism Chapter 8. Cutting Roman Catholicism Down to Size Chapter 9. Idolatry: West and East Chapter 10. Rehabilitating Islam Chapter 11. Dissent, Deism, and Atheism Conclusion: Literary Fortunes Appendix A: The Seven Volumes of Religious Ceremonies of the World Appendix B: Editions of Religious Ceremonies of the World Abbreviations Notes Acknowledgments Index

What People are Saying About This

John Marshall

A brilliant and important work about one of the most fascinating books in European history by three of the leading scholars in the world on the Enlightenment.
John Marshall, Johns Hopkins University

Charles H. Parker

A penetrating analysis of the overlooked but highly influential book on world religions by Bernard Picart and Jean Frederic Bernard. The authors offer compelling evidence that interaction with the broader world played a vital role in the development of the European Enlightenment. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, this could well turn out to be the book that changes our view of European history and modernity.
Charles H. Parker, author of Faith on the Margins: Catholics and Catholicism in the Dutch Golden Age

Siep Stuurman

Reflecting the combined expertise of three eminent historians of the Enlightenment, this important book makes a vital contribution to our understanding of the Radical Enlightenment as well as to eighteenth-century European cultural and intellectual history more generally. Well written and highly accessible, the book illuminates a major turning point in European Enlightenment thought and includes many illustrations by one of the premier engravers of the eighteenth century, which few present-day readers will have had the opportunity to see elsewhere.
Siep Stuurman, author of François Poulain de la Barre and the Invention of Modern Equality

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