The Beginning of Ideology: Consciousness and Society in the French Reformation

There was much talk about 'the end of ideology' in the last half of the twentieth century but little attempt to understand the obverse of this phenomenon - the 'beginning of ideology'. This book examines not the exhaustion but the generation of sentiments, values, ideals, justifications and actions which underlie one spectacular case of profound intellectual and social change. The Protestant Reformation, especially in its French phase, is a locus classicus of this process, viewed here in te...