The name Erasmus of Rotterdam conjures up a golden age of scholarly integrity and the disinterested pursuit of knowledge, when learning could command public admiration without the need for authorial self-promotion. Lisa Jardine, however, shows that Erasmus self-consciously created his own reputation as the central figure of the European intellectual world. Erasmus himself-the historical as opposed to the figural individual-was a brilliant, maverick innovator, who achieved little formal academic recognition in his own lifetime. What Jardine offers here is not only a fascinating study of Erasmus but also a bold account of a key moment in Western history, a time when it first became possible to believe in the existence of something that could be designated "European thought."
ISBN: | 9780691165691 |
Publication date: | 16th June 2015 |
Author: | Lisa Jardine |
Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
Format: | Paperback |
Pagination: | 304 pages |
Genres: |
Biography: philosophy and social sciences European history: Renaissance Humanist philosophy Philosophy of religion |