Kirjahaku

A scholarly study of Sir Robert Cotton as antiquary and politician. It examines his antiquarian writings, the building of his library, his relations with European scholars, his place at court, in parliament, and in the literary society of Renaissance London.

In 1625 Charles I succeeded to the throne of a nation heavily involved in a European war and deeply divided by religious controversy. Within four years he had transformed the political landscape of Britain, dissolved parliament, and begun a period of eleven years of personal rule. The nature of the King's government and the circumstances of its eventual collapse are central to an understanding of the origins of the English Civil War that followed. Kevin Sharpe's massive and authoritative analysis, based on a decade of research across a vast range of manuscript and printed sources, amounts to the most significant contribution to the history of early Stuart government since Gardiner's four-volume classic work in 1877.Sharpe presents an entirely fresh picture of Charles I and his annexation of power. He analyzes the personality, principles, and policies of a monarch who, after summoning more parliaments in his first year of rule than his predecessors had for a century, determined to govern without them. He assesses Charles' program of reform in central and local government and in church and state, and he discusses the years of peace and prosperity it engendered. He also examines priorities in foreign affairs and their impact on domestic policy. Sharpe subtly evaluates the degree of cooperation and opposition elicited and provoked by personal rule, and he analyzes the Scottish rebellion of 1637 that occasioned its undoing.The book yields rich new insights into the history of the reign, politics and religion, foreign policy and finance, the court and the counties, and attitudes and ideas. It provides a substantial reevaluation of the character of the king, the importance of parliaments, and the process of government without them. And it represents a critical new perspective on the origins of the political struggle that ended on the battlefields of the English Civil War.

In the climactic part of his three-book series exploring the importance of public image in the Tudor and Stuart monarchies, Kevin Sharpe employs a remarkable interdisciplinary approach that draws on literary studies and art history as well as political, cultural, and social history to show how this preoccupation with public representation met the challenge of dealing with the aftermath of Cromwell's interregnum and Charles II's restoration, and how the irrevocably changed cultural landscape was navigated by the sometimes astute yet equally fallible Stuart monarchs and their successors.

This fascinating book—the first comprehensive study of reading and politics in early modern England—examines how texts of that period were produced and disseminated and how readers interpreted and were influenced by them. Based on the voluminous reading notes of one gentleman, Sir William Drake, the book shows how readers formed radical social values and political ideas as they experienced civil war, revolution, republic, and restoration.By analyzing the strategies of Drake’s reading practices, as well as those of several key contemporaries (including Jonson, Milton, and Clarendon), Kevin Sharpe demonstrates how reading in the rhetorical culture of Renaissance England was a political act. He explains how Drake, for example, by reading and rereading classical and humanist works of Tacitus, Machiavelli, Guicciardini, and Bacon, became the advocate of dissimulation, intrigue, and realpolitik. Authority, Sharpe argues, was experienced, reviewed, and criticized not only in the public forum but in the study, on the page, and in the imagination of early modern readers.

The management of image in the service of power is a familiar tool of twenty-first- century politics. Yet as long ago as the sixteenth century, British monarchs deployed what we might now describe as “spin.” In this book a leading historian reveals how Tudor kings and queens sought to enhance their authority by presenting themselves to best advantage. Kevin Sharpe offers the first full analysis of the verbal and visual representations of Tudor power, embracing disciplines as diverse as art history, literary studies, and the history of consumption and material culture. The author finds that those rulers who maintained the delicate balance between mystification and popularization in the art of royal representation—notably Henry VIII and Elizabeth I—enjoyed the longest reigns and often the widest support. But by the end of the sixteenth century, the perception of royalty shifted, becoming less sacred and more familiar and leaving Stuart successors to the crown to deal with a difficult legacy.

Spin and photo opportunities may appear to have emerged onto the political scene only recently, but in fact image and its manipulation have always been vital to the authority of rulers. This book, the second in Kevin Sharpe’s trilogy exploring image, power, and communication in early modern England, examines its importance during the turbulent seventeenth century. From the coronation of James I to the end of Cromwell’s protectorate, Sharpe considers how royalists and parliamentarians—often using the same vocabularies—sought to manage their public image through words, pictures, and performances in order to win support and secure and enhance their authority.

Criticism and Compliment examines the poems, plays and masques of the three figures who succeeded Ben Jonson as authors of court entertainments in the England of Charles I. The courtly literature of Caroline England has been dismissed by critics and characterised by historians as propaganda for Charles I's absolutism penned by sycophantic hirelings. Kevin Sharpe questions the assumptions on which these evaluations have been based. Challenging the traditional argument for a polarity between court and country cultures in early Stuart England, he re-reads the plays, poems and masques as primary documents of political attitudes articulated at court. Far from being confined to a decade or a party, the courtly literature of the 1630s is relocated within the broader humanist tradition of counsel. Through the language of love - a language, it is argued, that was part of the discourse of politics in Caroline England - the court poets criticised fundamental premises of the King's political ideology, and counselled traditional and moderate modes of government.

It is now over twenty years since revisionist history began to transform our understanding of early modern England. The debates between revisionists and their critics goes on. But it has become a sterile debate in which both sides are confined by an attenuated conception of politics. Meanwhile scholars in other disciplines have opened new approaches to the political culture of the English Renaissance state, emphasising the importance of representations of authority and reading plays, poems and portraits as texts of power. Kevin Sharpe has been at the forefront of the dialogue between historians and critics, and a leading exponent of interdisciplinary approaches. In the essays collected here, and in an important new remapping of the field, he revisits earlier debates and urges a ‘cultural turn’ that will refigure our understanding of the history and politics of early modern England and the materials and methods of our study.

It is now over twenty years since revisionist history began to transform our understanding of early modern England. The debates between revisionists and their critics goes on. But it has become a sterile debate in which both sides are confined by an attenuated conception of politics. Meanwhile scholars in other disciplines have opened new approaches to the political culture of the English Renaissance state, emphasising the importance of representations of authority and reading plays, poems and portraits as texts of power. Kevin Sharpe has been at the forefront of the dialogue between historians and critics, and a leading exponent of interdisciplinary approaches. In the essays collected here, and in an important new remapping of the field, he revisits earlier debates and urges a ‘cultural turn’ that will refigure our understanding of the history and politics of early modern England and the materials and methods of our study.

In his new book Science of God, Kevin Sharpe proposes a method for doing theology which does not divorce it from the practical applications of science. Not only does this work establish that theology ought to be empirical in what it says about the world and God's relationship to it, but it also outlines a clear method for doing this. Science and theology can each share the same empirical method: when each attempts a description of any part of reality, it is relying on its own essential assumptions, or lens. When applied to theology, the method assumes the existence of God and then seeks the nature of God using falsifiable and verifiable techniques. Starting with the sciences that examine happiness—particularly biology, genetics, and psychology—Science of God seeks to understand the spiritual nature of humans and, through it, the nature of God.

Is theology responsible to tradition or new insight? Institutional church or humanity at large? Spiritual or everyday existence? Revelation or scientific findings? In his new bookScience of God:Truth in the Age of Science, Kevin Sharpe proposes a method for doing theology which does not divorce it from the practical applications of science. Not only does this work establish that theology ought to be empirical in what it says about the world and God's relationship to it, but it also outlines a clear method for doing this. Science and theology can each share the same empirical method: when each attempts a description of any part of reality, it is relying on its own essential assumptions, or lens. When applied to theology, the method assumes the existence of God and then seeks the nature of God using falsifiable and verifiable techniques. Starting with the sciences that examine happiness—particularly biology, genetics, psychology, and social psychology—Science of God seeks to understand the spiritual nature of humans and, through it, the nature of God.

Science and the spiritual quest come together in this work to produce a reliable and engaging introduction to the chief questions raised at the nexus of science and religion. Sharpe, a leader in the field, ably and engagingly seeks the reality of God in the world, even as he eschews traditional theological terms and authorities. Well- versed in the latest developments in physics and cosmology, biology and neuroscience, Sharpe provides fascinating accounts of how contemporary knowledge expands our notions of reality, and he queries the new scientific gurus for the substance and religious pertinence of their visions. Sharpe shows how they bear on questions of the origins of the universe, how divine action might be understood, immanence and transcendence, human freedom, morality, the presence of evil, and the mystery at the heart of the universe. This text can be viewed as a mini-course in philosophy of religion as affected by contemporary science.

David Bohm is a physicist with a broad range of other interests including religion, philosophy, education, art, and linguistics. This book surveys Bohm's physical theories including the quantum potential theory and the implicate order or holomovement theory.

Discover the promise of centering prayer as you embark on a profound journey of forgiveness, healing, and intimacy with God.If you suffer God wounds or religion wounds, this book provides an approach to Christian contemplative prayer that leads to the restoration and deepening of your fractured or wounded relationship with God.You'll learn how to move more deeply into centering prayer using a four-fold approach that includes: Exploring a little-known set of centering prayer instructions found in Psalm 62, Reflecting on questions and journaling answers based on your unique life experience, Engaging in nuanced centering prayer practices based on the instructions from Psalm 62, Incorporating imagination-based experiences to integrate new concepts into your body and mind.This approach to centering prayer consciously finds new and non-triggering language to describe and reframe important Christian concepts, which you may have originally received entangled with a legacy of fear and control and judgment. The intention behind reframing these concepts is to make them come alive and enrich your centering prayer experiences.Set out on a path of centering prayer today, and start to resolve and heal your wounds around God and religion. Buy Centering Prayer: Healing Our God Wound and experience the unfolding of a profound journey into forgiveness, healing, and intimate relationship with God.

Live a liberated life. Get real with yourself and your relationships. It takes awareness and understanding. It also takes healing of the broken places in the heart. Most people avoid living life authentically and fully. Instead of real life, many prefer to use spirituality to avoid or bypass the pain. While it's the story many people choose to live, it doesn't have to be the story you settle for. Choose the story that begins with a star-the Epiphany story.Enter into the Epiphany story and you'll change how you live life. You'll find yourself drawn into the holy presence of a tender and vulnerable God. In touch with such a presence, how could you not be changed?Join the popular spiritual director and educator Kevin Sharpe as he guides you on a journey of self-discovery and healing. Using the story of the Magi, you'll move into the intimate world of your interior landscape. You'll acknowledge and release attempts to spiritually bypass and avoid any fear you may be holding onto. You'll move into the very presence of and encounter with Emmanuel, this God Among Us, who is the King of the Universe, yet whose appearance takes the form of a vulnerable newborn child.Each beautifully written chapter is a poignant story in itself and contains: Clear and insightful teachings that bring to life the path that the Magi traveled and that will lead you to new life-one lived authentically and in loving relationship with others.Body-based activities to help you develop skills needed to break through patterns of spiritual bypassing.Reflection questions for you to consider to deepen your understanding about how you personally engage with your life.Heartfelt prayers to hold space for you to humbly and earnestly connect with God during your walk on your own journey with the Magi.Stop living a life ruled by fear and spiritual bypassing (or other types of avoidance). Buy God Among Us: Dismantling Spiritual Bypassing today, and start living a connected, honest, and authentic life while healing the brokenness in your heart.

Have you ever wondered what spiritual direction really is? Maybe you've heard the term, but it still feels a bit unclear. Is it therapy? Coaching? Advice with a spiritual twist? Spiritual Direction: Getting You and God Together clears up the confusion around this centuries-old practice. In clear, grounded language, spiritual director Kevin Sharpe explains what actually takes place in a spiritual direction session and why spiritual direction matters. Far from being something lofty or mystical, spiritual direction offers a grounded, human way to notice God's presence in ordinary life. You'll see how spiritual direction differs from counseling or mentoring, and how the relationship between spiritual director and directee is shaped by four central movements: witnessing, blessing, companionship, and trusting presence. Who This Book Is For Anyone who has heard of spiritual direction but isn't sure what it really is People curious about a more attentive, relational way of noticing God Those discerning whether spiritual direction is something they should seek out Pastors, ministers, and caregivers wanting a clearer understanding of the practice Whether you're simply curious or seriously discerning if spiritual direction is right for you, this book offers a trustworthy place to start. No jargon. No hype. Just a real, honest look at how spiritual direction helps get you and God together.