State, Science and Modernization in England: From the Renaissance to the Modern Times

Herborn Symposion 1990. Edited by Jürgen Klein. Zwölf Beiträge - alle in englischer Sprache - widmen sich der Entwicklung der Moderne in England von der Renaissance bis zum ausgehenden 20. Jahrhundert. Im Zentrum stehen die Wechselwirkungen zwischen dem allgemeinen kulturellen Bezugssystem, Staat und Wissenschaft. - This volume investigates the process of modernization in England from the Renaissance to the last decade of the 20th century. It concentrates on the aspects of state and science within the overall cultural framework. From the 16th century onwards, changes in language and literature prepared the ground for innovations like the turn towards empiricism and the rise of tolerance. The intellectual and literary scene of the 17th century brought forward a dynamics of cultural complexity and differentiated system-transformations, whereas the Age of Reason fostered new sociopolitical patterns, as well as new epistemological and economical ideas, which both influenced the ethical-aesthetical realm, such as the breaking of taboos (Hogarth). Romanticists, however, favoured a normative criticism of modernization, whereas English 19th-century authors claimed the necessity to spread knowledge. Concomitantly, authors and intellectuals entered a debate on the tension between technological revolution and the holistic interpretation of self/culture, which has not yet found its termination. XXV,335 Seiten und 22 Tafeln, broschiert (ALSTEDIANA - Forschungen zur Mentalitäts- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit; Band 1/Olms Verlag 1994) leicht angeschmutzt/slightly soiled