The Religious Revolution: The Birth of Modern Spirituality, 1848-1898
“An incisive study of the Western world’s shift from institutional religion to more personal beliefs in the second half of the nineteenth century . . . This is intellectual history at its most comprehensive and convincing.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The late nineteenth century was an age of grand ideas and great expectations fueled by rapid scientific and technological innovation. In Europe, the ancient authority of church and crown was overthrown for the volatile gambles of democracy and the capitalist market. If it was an age that claimed to liberate women, slaves, and serfs, it also harnessed children to its factories and subjected entire peoples to its empires. Amid this tumult, another sea change was underway: the religious revolution.

In The Religious Revolution, Dominic Green charts this profound cultural and political shift, taking us on a whirlwind journey through the lives and ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman; of Éliphas Lévi and Helena Blavatsky; of Wagner and Nietzsche; of Marx, Darwin, and Gandhi. Challenged by the industrialization, globalization, and political unrest of their times, these figures found themselves connecting with the religious impulse in surprising new ways, inspiring others to move away from the strictures of religion and toward the thrill and intimacy of spirituality. The modern era is often characterized as a time of increasing secularism, but in this trenchant new work, Green demonstrates how the foundations of modern society were laid as much by spirituality as by science or reason.

The Religious Revolution is a narrative tour de force that sweeps across several continents and five of the most turbulent and formative decades in history. Threading together seemingly disparate intellectual trajectories, Green illuminates how philosophers, grifters, artists, scientists, and yogis shared in a global cultural moment, borrowing one another’s beliefs and making the world we know today.

1140145997
The Religious Revolution: The Birth of Modern Spirituality, 1848-1898
“An incisive study of the Western world’s shift from institutional religion to more personal beliefs in the second half of the nineteenth century . . . This is intellectual history at its most comprehensive and convincing.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The late nineteenth century was an age of grand ideas and great expectations fueled by rapid scientific and technological innovation. In Europe, the ancient authority of church and crown was overthrown for the volatile gambles of democracy and the capitalist market. If it was an age that claimed to liberate women, slaves, and serfs, it also harnessed children to its factories and subjected entire peoples to its empires. Amid this tumult, another sea change was underway: the religious revolution.

In The Religious Revolution, Dominic Green charts this profound cultural and political shift, taking us on a whirlwind journey through the lives and ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman; of Éliphas Lévi and Helena Blavatsky; of Wagner and Nietzsche; of Marx, Darwin, and Gandhi. Challenged by the industrialization, globalization, and political unrest of their times, these figures found themselves connecting with the religious impulse in surprising new ways, inspiring others to move away from the strictures of religion and toward the thrill and intimacy of spirituality. The modern era is often characterized as a time of increasing secularism, but in this trenchant new work, Green demonstrates how the foundations of modern society were laid as much by spirituality as by science or reason.

The Religious Revolution is a narrative tour de force that sweeps across several continents and five of the most turbulent and formative decades in history. Threading together seemingly disparate intellectual trajectories, Green illuminates how philosophers, grifters, artists, scientists, and yogis shared in a global cultural moment, borrowing one another’s beliefs and making the world we know today.

24.0 In Stock
The Religious Revolution: The Birth of Modern Spirituality, 1848-1898

The Religious Revolution: The Birth of Modern Spirituality, 1848-1898

by Dominic Green
The Religious Revolution: The Birth of Modern Spirituality, 1848-1898

The Religious Revolution: The Birth of Modern Spirituality, 1848-1898

by Dominic Green

Paperback

$24.00 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Qualifies for Free Shipping
  • PICK UP IN STORE

    Your local store may have stock of this item.

Related collections and offers


Overview

“An incisive study of the Western world’s shift from institutional religion to more personal beliefs in the second half of the nineteenth century . . . This is intellectual history at its most comprehensive and convincing.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The late nineteenth century was an age of grand ideas and great expectations fueled by rapid scientific and technological innovation. In Europe, the ancient authority of church and crown was overthrown for the volatile gambles of democracy and the capitalist market. If it was an age that claimed to liberate women, slaves, and serfs, it also harnessed children to its factories and subjected entire peoples to its empires. Amid this tumult, another sea change was underway: the religious revolution.

In The Religious Revolution, Dominic Green charts this profound cultural and political shift, taking us on a whirlwind journey through the lives and ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman; of Éliphas Lévi and Helena Blavatsky; of Wagner and Nietzsche; of Marx, Darwin, and Gandhi. Challenged by the industrialization, globalization, and political unrest of their times, these figures found themselves connecting with the religious impulse in surprising new ways, inspiring others to move away from the strictures of religion and toward the thrill and intimacy of spirituality. The modern era is often characterized as a time of increasing secularism, but in this trenchant new work, Green demonstrates how the foundations of modern society were laid as much by spirituality as by science or reason.

The Religious Revolution is a narrative tour de force that sweeps across several continents and five of the most turbulent and formative decades in history. Threading together seemingly disparate intellectual trajectories, Green illuminates how philosophers, grifters, artists, scientists, and yogis shared in a global cultural moment, borrowing one another’s beliefs and making the world we know today.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781250863140
Publisher: Picador
Publication date: 04/18/2023
Pages: 464
Sales rank: 1,000,208
Product dimensions: 5.30(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Dominic Green, PhD, FRHistS is a critic, historian and the deputy editor of The Spectator’s US edition. He writes widely on the arts and current affairs, and contributes regularly to The Wall Street Journal and the New Criterion. He is the author of the books Three Empires of the Nile, Armies of God, Benny Green: Words and Music, and The Double Life of Doctor Lopez. He lives in Cambridge, MA.

Table of Contents

Prologue: 1848

Great Expectations

PART I: THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS: 1848–1871

1. The New Prometheus

Socialists and Spiritualists in the Age of the Machine

2. The Stones of Venice

Ruskin and Thoreau Against the Juggernaut

3. The French Revelation

Baudelaire, Lévi, and the Romantic Occult

4. The Descent of Man

Darwin, Gobineau, and the Meaning of Life

5. The New Chronology

Whitman, Huxley, and the War for the Soul

6. The Origin of the World

Wagner, Jesus, and the Racial Spirit

PART II: THE NEW AGE: 1871–1898

7. Passage to India

Madame Blavatsky’s Empire of Theosophy

8. The Revolt of Zarathustra

Nietzsche in Urania

9. The Eternal Return

Colonel Olcott and the Modern Buddha

10. The Will to Power

Afghani’s Islamic Science and Other Conspiracies

11. Culture and Anarchy

The New Age Education of Mohandas Gandhi

12. The Perspectivists

Vivekananda and Herzl Among the Aryans

Epilogue: 1898

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Index

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews