Overview

Ramism was the most controversial pedagogical movement to sweep through the Protestant world in the latter sixteenth century. While its origins in France, its impact in colonial America, and its influence in England, Scotland, and Ireland have been studied in detail, its uniquely warm reception in central Europe - where the great majority of posthumous reprintings of Ramus's work appeared - has never been synoptically studied. This book, the first contextualized study of this rich tradition, therefore has wide-ranging implications for the intellectual, cultural, and social histories not only of the Holy Roman Empire but also of the entire Protestant world in the crucial decades immediately preceding the advent of the 'new philosophy' in the mid-seventeenth century.

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9780198174301

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Reviews

A valuable addition to the history of the Ramist movement in central Europe. European History Quarterly Brilliantly written, perfectly constructed, Hotson's work reads like a novel...a rich and convincing panorama which will serve from this point onward as an indispensable landmark for all future research in a particularly elusive and complex field of study Kees Meerhoff, Bibliotheque d'humanisme et renaissance This volume is a fine study of Ramism in German lands, and it offers a sound argument for the popularity and impact of Ramus. Richard A. Muller, Renaissance Quarterly The virtues of Hotson's work are many. It negotiates the difficult challenge of writing prose that accommodates the detail necessary to recreate the intellectual, social and political elements involved in his story while at the same time producing a clear and intelligible text. The argument he develops in the course of the work is entirely convincing, and gains for his work the distinction of being the preeminent study of the topic, putting to rest Ongs interpretations of Ramism's appeal and spread. Those who study the intellectual life of this era will need to take Hotsons work into account Patrick Hayden-Roy, German History This is a densely learned and really valuable study, which combines scholarship on areas including the history of early modern universities, late renaissance Aristotelianism and the philosophical textbook tradition with impressive, polyglot linguistic skill and strong sympathy for the importance of Ramism and encyclopaedism as significant intellectual traditions. Consequently, it contains much that will be of great interest to historians of universities and to those working on many other areas of intellectual history. Michael Edwards, History of Universities, XXIII/2

Author Information

Dr Hotson works in the field of early modern European intellectual history, with particular attention to central Europe and the international Reformed world c.1550-1660. Thematically, he has written on the histories of science, philosophy, religion, education, and political theory and their relationship to broader social, political, and confessional developments. At the heart of his interests are the gradually expanding reform movements of the post-Reformation period culminating in the pansophism of Comenius, the universal reform programme of Samuel Hartlib, and the audacious philosophical projects of Leibnitz. Oxford University Press published his book on Alsted in 2000: Johann Heinrich Alsted 1588-1638: Between Renaissance, Reformation and Universal Reform: it received a wide range of excellent reviews.

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