A study of the life and works of Athanasius Kircher, "Germanus incredibilis" : with a selection of his unpublished correspondence and an annotated translation of his autobiography...
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Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit in 17th-century Rome, was an enigma. Intensely pious and a prolific author, he was also a polymath fascinated with everything from Egyptian hieroglyphs to the tiny creatures in his microscope. His correspondence with popes, princes and priests was a window into the restless energy of the period. It showed first-hand the seventeenth-century's struggle for knowledge in astronomy, microscopy, geology, chemistry, musicology, Egyptology, horology... The list goes on. Kircher's books reflect the mind-set of 17th-century scholars - endless curiosity and a substantial larding of naiveté: Kircher scorned alchemy as the wishful thinking of charlatans, yet believed in dragons. His life and correspondence provide a key to the transition from the Middle Ages to a new scientific age. This book, though unpublished, has been long quoted and referred to. Awaited by scholars and specialists of Kircher, it is finally available with this edition.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004216327 :
1871-1405 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Egyptology from the First World War to the Third Reich : ideology, scholarship, and individual biographies /
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Only recently has Egyptology begun to critically examine its history in the first half of the 20th century. This book presents major contributions that analyze the interplay of personal biographies and political history, ideologies and academic scholarship between the First World War and the Third Reich. Peter Raulwing and Thomas Gertzen study the political activism of Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Bissing, professor of Egyptology at the University of Munich and art collector, during and after the First World War. Thomas Schneider's contribution is the first comprehensive treatment of the biographies of German and Austrian Egyptologists in the time of National Socialism and their careers after 1945, with remarks on the relationship between Egyptological scholarship and Nazi ideology. Lindsay Ambridge analyzes the scholarship of James Henry Breasted, the patron of North American Egyptology, in the context of racial ideologies of the early 20th century. A concluding chapter by Peter Raulwing, added after the death of Manfred Mayrhofer, patron of the study of Indo-Aryans in the Ancient Near East, reflects on the 20th century ideological and academic interest in the question of Indo-Aryans in the Ancient Near East. In the introductory chapter, Edmund Meltzer places these studies and their significance in the wider context of Egyptological and historiographical scholarship. \'...this book makes a significant contribution to exploring a dark chapter in Egyptology's history as a discipline and an important step in understanding the effect that period had on the academic community.\' Edward Mushett Cole, University of Birmingham
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1 online resource (296 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004243309 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.