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Erasmus

Intellectual of the 16th Century

  • Book
  • © 2021

Overview

Authors:
  1. Nathan Ron

    1. The University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

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  • Serves as a sequel to Nathan Ron's previous book, Erasmus and the "Other"

  • Explores Erasmus' attitudes toward the expansionist foreign policy of European kings

  • Compares Erasmus and Reuchlin with regard to their intellectualism and cosmopolitanism

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Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiii
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  2. Introduction: Prefiguring the Modern Intellectual?

    • Nathan Ron
    Pages 1-12

  3. The Public Good

    • Nathan Ron
    Pages 13-21

  4. An Intellectual Against Crusading

    • Nathan Ron
    Pages 23-36

  5. Erasmus on the Education and Nature of Women

    • Nathan Ron
    Pages 37-47

  6. In the Face of the Execution of Thomas More

    • Nathan Ron
    Pages 49-56

  7. In the Face of Francis I’s Foreign policy

    • Nathan Ron
    Pages 57-64

  8. In the Face of the Destruction of the Amerindians

    • Nathan Ron
    Pages 65-69

  9. Erasmus’s Turkophobic Bias

    • Nathan Ron
    Pages 71-80

  10. Erasmus and Reuchlin: The Jews and their Language

    • Nathan Ron
    Pages 81-96

  11. Conclusions: Only Sparks Fly Upward

    • Nathan Ron
    Pages 97-102

  12. Back Matter

    Pages 103-116
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Keywords

About this book

This book is a sequel to Nathan Ron's Erasmus and the “Other.” Should we consider Erasmus an involved or public intellectual alongside figures such as Machiavelli, Milton, Locke, Voltaire, and Montesquieu? Was Erasmus really an independent intellectual? In Ron's estimation, Erasmus did not fully live up to his professed principles of Christian peace. Despite the anti-war preaching so eminent in his writings, he made no stand against the warlike and expansionist foreign policies of specific European kings of his era, and even praised the glory won by Francis I on the battlefield of Marignano (1515). Furthermore, in the face of Henry VIII’s execution of his beloved Thomas More and John Fisher, and the atrocities committed by the Spanish against indigenous peoples in the New World, Erasmus preferred self-censorship to expressions of protest or criticism and did not step forward to reproach kings of their misdeeds or crimes. 

Reviews

“Under the modest title of Erasmus: Intellectual of the 16th century, Nathan Ron provides a new ethical look at several problematic positions held by the “Prince of Humanists” towards other groups and contemporaneous issues. Each chapter deals with a relationship that has ethical implications. The author, unlike any other scholar in recent time, draws attention to a wide range of issues, such as the Public Good, the Crusades against the Turks, Turkophobia, and women’s nature and their education. Ron exposes Erasmus’s silence with respect to the execution of Thomas More in England, and the destruction of the native population in the New World. He compares the views of Erasmus and Johann Reuchlin regarding the Jews and the Hebrew language, whereby Erasmus comes off badly. We are indebted to Nathan Ron for broadening our view of this important figure.”

—Franz Posset, independent Catholic ecumenist and church historian, USA

"An evaluation of Erasmus as a public intellectual from the author of Erasmus and the Other. In his new study, Ron shows that we must consider not only what Erasmus said but also what he left unsaid."

—Erika Rummel, Professor Emerita of History, University of Toronto, Canada

Authors and Affiliations

  • The University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

    Nathan Ron

About the author

Nathan Ron is Research Fellow at the School of History, The University of Haifa, Israel.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Erasmus

  • Book Subtitle: Intellectual of the 16th Century

  • Authors: Nathan Ron

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79860-4

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: History, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-79859-8Published: 28 July 2021

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-79860-4Published: 27 July 2021

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIII, 116

  • Topics: History of Early Modern Europe, History of Religion, History, general

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