The importance of a single life: one of the most fascinating stories from US history that you've probably never heard of. Washed overboard from the Mayflower during a raging storm, John Howland almost died. He should have died. His rescue was not only daring but surprising, for he was a nobody at the time, merely an indentured servant. We don't know why some of the crew, who didn't even like the Pilgrims and often taunted and cursed them, chose in this instance to risk their lives to save him. We can be grateful they did. Had John Howland sunk to the bottom of the ocean, he would have taken with him all his future descendants, including Emerson, Longfellow, Humphrey Bogart, Dr. Spock, three US presidents (FDR, George H.W.Bush, George W. Bush), plus so many more. Maybe even you.

The importance of a single life: one of the most fascinating stories from US history that you've probably never heard of. Washed overboard from the Mayflower during a raging storm, John Howland almost died. He should have died. His rescue was not only daring but surprising, for he was a nobody at the time, merely an indentured servant. We don't know why some of the crew, who didn't even like the Pilgrims and often taunted and cursed them, chose in this instance to risk their lives to save him. We can be grateful they did. Had John Howland sunk to the bottom of the ocean, he would have taken with him all his future descendants, including Emerson, Longfellow, Humphrey Bogart, Dr. Spock, three US presidents (FDR, George H.W.Bush, George W. Bush), plus so many more. Maybe even you.

The company also sent along a new employee to guard its treasure. He was Jeronimus Corneliszoon, a disgraced and bankrupt man with great charisma and dangerously heretical ideas. With the help of a few disgruntled sailors, he hatched a plot to seize the ship and her riches. The mutiny might have succeeded, but in the dark morning hours of June 3, 1629, the Batavia smashed through a coral reef and ran aground on a small chain of islands near Australia. The captain and skipper escaped the wreck, and in a tiny lifeboat they set sail for Java--some 1,500 miles north--to summon help. More than 250 frightened survivors waded ashore, thankful to be alive. Unfortunately, Jeronimus and the mutineers had survived too, and the nightmare was only beginning.

Sixteen years after Ren Descartes' death in Stockholm in 1650, a pious French ambassador exhumed the remains of the controversial philosopher to transport them back to Paris. Thus began a 350-year saga that saw Descartes' bones traverse a continent, passing between kings, philosophers, poets, and painters.

But as Russell Shorto shows in this deeply engaging book, Descartes' bones also played a role in some of the most momentous episodes in history, which are also part of the philosopher's metaphorical remains: the birth of science, the rise of democracy, and the earliest debates between reason and faith. Descartes' Bones is a flesh-and-blood story about the battle between religion and rationalism that rages to this day.

A New York Times Notable Book

This book re-examines the historical emergence and evolution of capitalism. Why did a radically new way of organizing economic life emerge in regions of the early modern world? Why did it eventually encompass the globe, tying the peoples of the world together in a common economic fate? These questions have been at the heart of historical and social-scientific inquiry since the nineteenth century. They are explored and answered anew by the scholars gathered together in this geographically and theoretically capacious volume. The chapters explore the emergence and development of capitalism in Africa, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, South Asia, East Asia, North America, and the Atlantic world, and they engage with many of the major intellectual approaches for understanding capitalism, from the New Institutional Economics to world-systems theory.

The authors share a common commitment, but not a common approach, to understanding the historical development of capitalism. They believe that the emergence and evolution of capitalism must be understood by examining the concrete conditions of socioeconomic life in a particular country, empire, or region, and that such empirically and archivally driven historical analysis must be combined with theoretical discussion of the concepts and categories used to make sense of capitalism and its dynamics.

This work offers different accounts of capitalist development across and within major regions of the world. It is a histories of, rather than a history of, capitalism. As such, it introduces readers to new historical research on capitalist development in different regional and national contexts and to several significant intellectual approaches for understanding what Max Weber called the most fateful force of our modern life.

ROBERT G. INGRAM is Professor of Humanities at the University of Florida.
JAMES M. VAUGHN is Assistant Instructional Professor in the Social Sciences Collegiate Division at the University of Chicago.

Contributors:
Gareth Austin, Ralph Austen, Peter Coclanis, Tracy Dennison, C. Alexander Evans, Emma Griffin, Robert G. Ingram, Anirban Karak, John Majewski, Mark Metzler, Kenneth Pomeranz, J. Mark Ramseyer, Tirthankar Roy and Horus T'an

Concerns over privacy grow in our society. Understanding the historical roots of the phenomenon becomes more and more necessary to navigate our contemporary struggles with availability and control of personal information. When we ponder what people of the past valued and aimed to protect and what they considered threatening and needing uncovering, we achieve a broader perspective of the importance of privacy in everyday life. The early modern period, in particular, was a period in which many views and experiences of privacy were negotiated and consolidated into more recognisable feelings and norms in different layers of society.

This volume will focus on Saxony, as it is a great example to explore how privacy was created and negotiated in the early modern period. Throughout the sixteenth century, Saxony rose to prominence in the broader European context through the influence of its Electors. Saxony is an emblematic context to explore notions of privacy in the early modern period, as the region underwent a range of transformations - religious, political, legal, and cultural - that reconfigured the thresholds between the private and the public.

The main goals of this volume are: to put Saxony on the map of early modern studies of privacy by bringing forth the region's contribution to political, cultural, scientific, religious, and legal developments; to challenge preconceived notions of privacy in the early modern German context by providing new analytical tools to analyse both well-known and novel sources; to inaugurate and instigate further the research of early modern privacy in regional studies.

In this critical darling Vermeer's captivating and enigmatic paintings become windows that reveal how daily life and thought-from Delft to Beijing--were transformed in the 17th century, when the world first became global.

A Vermeer painting shows a military officer in a Dutch sitting room, talking to a laughing girl. In another canvas, fruit spills from a blue-and-white porcelain bowl. Familiar images that captivate us with their beauty--but as Timothy Brook shows us, these intimate pictures actually give us a remarkable view of an expanding world. The officer's dashing hat is made of beaver fur from North America, and it was beaver pelts from America that financed the voyages of explorers seeking routes to China-prized for the porcelains so often shown in Dutch paintings of this time, including Vermeer's. In this dazzling history, Timothy Brook uses Vermeer's works, and other contemporary images from Europe, Asia, and the Americas to trace the rapidly growing web of global trade, and the explosive, transforming, and sometimes destructive changes it wrought in the age when globalization really began.

Inside you will read about...- The Superstructure of the VOC
- The Growth of VOC's Colonies and Trade Routes
- The Golden Age
- Reorientation and the Expansion Age
- The Great Wars and Conquests of the VOC
- Decline and Fall
And much more

The rich history of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie commonly referred to as the VOC, and its titanic exploits are as astonishing as the twelve labors of Hercules. Uncover the organization that in no small part built the world we live in from the ground up.

A century of warfare to claim a continent

This unique Leonaur book provides an overview of all the conflicts in North America during the later 17th and 18th centuries, to the close of the Seven Years' War and on the Western frontier prior to the American Revolution. The overarching issue during this period was which European power, Britain or France, would succeed in dominating that part of the Americas. Each side had its own regular troops and locally raised militias, together with distinctive Native-American allies divided by the deep enmity between the Huron and the Iroquois nations. In these pages the reader will chronologically follow the bloody warpath through King William's War, Queen Anne's War, King George's War, the fighting in the Ohio Valley, Braddock's Defeat, the Battle at Lake George, the fall of Louisbourg, and the struggles for the frontier forts including William Henry, Ticonderoga, Frontenac and Du Quesne. Johnson's account concludes with the campaign that led to the fall of Quebec and French defeat in Canada. To provide context this book also includes an account of the Ohio Indian War led by the Ottawa war chief, Pontiac, which broke out in 1763 and led to the final expulsion of French forces from North America. Contains maps and illustrations.

Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket.

In The Astronomer and the Witch, Ulinka Rublack pieces together the tale of this extraordinary episode in Kepler's life, one which takes us to the heart of his changing world. First and foremost an intense family drama, the story brings to life the world of a small Lutheran community in the centre of Europe at a time of deep religious and political turmoil--a century after the Reformation, and on the threshold of the Thirty Years' War.

Kepler's defense of his mother also offers us a fascinating glimpse into the great astronomer's world view, on the cusp between Reformation and scientific revolution. While advancing rational explanations for the phenomena which his mother's accusers attributed to witchcraft, Kepler nevertheless did not call into question the existence of magic and witches. On the contrary, he clearly believed in them. And, as the story unfolds, it appears that there were moments when even Katharina's children wondered whether their mother really did have nothing to hide...

First published in 2013, Geoffrey Parker's prize-winning best seller Global Crisis analyzes the unprecedented calamities--revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, and regicides--that befell the mid-seventeenth-century world and wiped out as much as one-third of the global population, and reveals climate change to be the root cause. Examining firsthand accounts of the crises and scrutinizing the prevailing weather patterns during the 1640s and 1650s--longer and harsher winters, and cooler and wetter summers--Parker reveals evidence of disrupted growing seasons causing malnutrition, disease, a higher death toll, and fewer births.

This new abridged edition distills the original book's prodigious research for a broader audience while retaining and indeed emphasizing Parker's extraordinary historical achievement: his dazzling demonstration of the link between climate change and worldwide catastrophe 350 years ago. Yet, the contemporary implications of his study are equally important: are we prepared today for the catastrophes that climate change could bring tomorrow? At half the original length, this user-friendly abridgment is ideal for students and general readers seeking a rapid handle on the key issues.

Revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, regicides - the calamities of the mid-seventeenth century were not only unprecedented, they were agonisingly widespread. A global crisis extended from England to Japan, and from the Russian Empire to sub-Saharan Africa. North and South America, too, suffered turbulence. The distinguished historian Geoffrey Parker examines first-hand accounts of men and women throughout the world describing what they saw and suffered during a sequence of political, economic and social crises that stretched from 1618 to the 1680s. Parker also deploys scientific evidence concerning climate conditions of the period, and his use of 'natural' as well as 'human' archives transforms our understanding of the World Crisis. Changes in the prevailing weather patterns during the 1640s and 1650s - longer and harsher winters, and cooler and wetter summers - disrupted growing seasons, causing dearth, malnutrition, and disease, along with more deaths and fewer births. Some contemporaries estimated that one-third of the world died, and much of the surviving historical evidence supports their pessimism.

Parker's demonstration of the link between climate change and worldwide catastrophe 350 years ago stands as an extraordinary historical achievement. And the contemporary implications of his study are equally important: are we at all prepared today for the catastrophes that climate change could bring tomorrow?

A century of warfare to claim a continent

This unique Leonaur book provides an overview of all the conflicts in North America during the later 17th and 18th centuries, to the close of the Seven Years' War and on the Western frontier prior to the American Revolution. The overarching issue during this period was which European power, Britain or France, would succeed in dominating that part of the Americas. Each side had its own regular troops and locally raised militias, together with distinctive Native-American allies divided by the deep enmity between the Huron and the Iroquois nations. In these pages the reader will chronologically follow the bloody warpath through King William's War, Queen Anne's War, King George's War, the fighting in the Ohio Valley, Braddock's Defeat, the Battle at Lake George, the fall of Louisbourg, and the struggles for the frontier forts including William Henry, Ticonderoga, Frontenac and Du Quesne. Johnson's account concludes with the campaign that led to the fall of Quebec and French defeat in Canada. To provide context this book also includes an account of the Ohio Indian War led by the Ottawa war chief, Pontiac, which broke out in 1763 and led to the final expulsion of French forces from North America. Contains maps and illustrations.

Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket.

A small circle drawn around North Nottinghamshire and West Lincolnshire, centred on Retford/Gainsborough, encompasses the origins of most of the important English-speaking Protestant denominations. With Thomas Cranmer born just to the south, this area of market towns and quiet villages has produced generation after generation of radical Christians who have changed the shape of the Faith across the World. The first generation of Puritans gave birth to separatists, Congregationalists and the 'Mayflower' Pilgrims. With them came the first Baptists, then the Quakers, the Wesleys and Methodism, whilst recent years have also produced some significant global Christian leaders.

In between this area gave rise to calls for religious freedom for all, and had a significant impact on the America Constitution. Since 1800, missionaries have left this quiet countryside to explore locations as diverse as Fiji, Papua New Guinea and southern Africa. Adrian Gray's book tells the stories of the people, their struggles and sacrifice, showing how even humble folk from unimportant villages could change whole cultures. But it is also a story of great noble men and women who used their money to spread the Word and some who paid for their beliefs with their lives at the stake, on the gallows, in a prison cell or even in a cannibal's pot. The villages are arranged alphabetically throughout the book.

The Age of Genius explores the eventful intertwining of outward event and inner intellectual life to tell, in all its richness and depth, the story of the 17th century in Europe. It was a time of creativity unparalleled in history before or since, from science to the arts, from philosophy to politics. Acclaimed philosopher and historian A.C. Grayling points to three primary factors that led to the rise of vernacular (popular) languages in philosophy, theology, science, and literature; the rise of the individual as a general and not merely an aristocratic type; and the invention and application of instruments and measurement in the study of the natural world.

Grayling vividly reconstructs this unprecedented era and breathes new life into the major figures of the seventeenth century intelligentsia who span literature, music, science, art, and philosophy--Shakespeare, Monteverdi, Galileo, Rembrandt, Locke, Newton, Descartes, Vermeer, Hobbes, Milton, and Cervantes, among many more. During this century, a fundamentally new way of perceiving the world emerged as reason rose to prominence over tradition, and the rights of the individual took center stage in philosophy and politics, a paradigmatic shift that would define Western thought for centuries to come.

A tribute to the work of the late Justin Champion, this volume explores the radical religious and political ideas of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England which were at the heart of Champion's intellectual contributions. Drawing on the debates and upheavals that dominated the period from the British Civil Wars to the mid-eighteenth century, the essays in this collection interrogate the challenging relationship between politics and religion which prompted what Champion called a 'Crisis of Christianity'.

Diverse perspectives on that crisis are reconstructed, encompassing the experiences of republicans and radicals, philosophers and historians, atheists and clergymen. Through these individuals, a complex discourse which defies easy categorisation is recovered, but which speaks to central discussions concerning the evolving relationship between Church and State, the character of radical thought in Enlightenment England, and indeed the nature of that Enlightenment itself.

In 1685, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes made Catholicism the only recognized religion in France and criminalized the practice of Calvinism, throwing the minority Protestant population into crisis. A Peddler's Tale personifies these events in the story of Jean Giraud, a Protestant merchant-peddler, and his various communities. Drawing on Giraud's account book; municipal, parish, and consistory records; and death inventories, Kristine Wirts ably reconstructs Giraud's familial, commercial, and religious circles. She provides a detailed description of the persecution of Giraud and his fellow church members in La Grave, France, as well as their flight across the Alps to Vevey, Switzerland. The town's residents did not welcome all refugees equally, often expelling Huguenots without social connections or financial resources. Those allowed to stay worked diligently to reestablish their lives and fortunes. Once settled in Vevey, Giraud and his extended family supported themselves by moneylending and peddling books, watch parts, and lace products.

In contrast to past studies on the Huguenot diaspora that often depicted those fleeing France in heroic terms, A Peddler's Tale exposes the harsh economic realities many exiles faced, as well as the importance of social relationships and the necessity of having financial means to secure passage and sanctuary. Wirts contends that Huguenotrefugees who succeeded in obtaining permanent residency in Vevey shared one important element: many derived their livelihood from the burgeoning economic ties and social bonds that emerged with the rise of capitalist markets. A compelling microhistory, A Peddler's Tale ultimately illustrates the role and power of informal networks in sustaining and fostering early modern communities.