James Van Horn Melton Knihy

Focusing on the historical significance of Pietism, this collection examines the German-speaking Pietistic groups that migrated to North America in the long eighteenth century. It highlights the movement's evangelical and diverse characteristics, drawing parallels with Puritanism. By presenting essays from various scholars, the volume offers an interdisciplinary perspective, situating Pietism within the broader Atlantic context and enhancing the understanding of religious life in both Europe and colonial North America during this period.

Focusing on early efforts at educational reform, this 1988 study examines initiatives in predominantly 'premodern' societies. It delves into the motivations and challenges faced by reformers and highlights the impact of cultural and historical contexts on their attempts to innovate within traditional educational frameworks. By analyzing these precocious endeavors, the book sheds light on the complexities of implementing change in settings resistant to modernization.

Part of the New Approaches to European History series, this 2001 title provides an inter-disciplinary study of the rise of 'the public' in eighteenth-century Europe. James Melton's lucid and accessible account will be of interest to students of social and political history, literary studies, political theory, and the history of women.

Focusing on the territories of the Holy Roman Empire from the early Reformation to the mid-eighteenth century, this volume of fifteen interdisciplinary essays examines some of the structures, practices and media of communication that helped shape the social, cultural, and political history of the period. Not surprisingly, print was an important focal point, but it was only one medium through which individuals and institutions constructed publics and communicated with an audience. Religious iconography and ritual, sermons, music, civic architecture, court ceremony, street gossip, acts of violence, are also forms of communication explored in the volume. Bringing together scholars from diverse disciplines and scholarly backgrounds, this volume transcends narrow specializations and will be of interest to a broad range of academics seeking to understand the social, political and cultural consequences of the "information revolution" of Reformation Europe.