Lynn Hunt

Professor of History of Science Margaret C Jacob

Margaret C Jacob

University Lynn Hunt

W. W Mijnhardt

Two French Protestant refugees in eighteenth-century Amsterdam gave the world an extraordinary work that intrigued and outraged readers across Europe. In this captivating account, Lynn Hunt, Margaret C. Jacob, and Wijnand Mijnhardt take us to the vibrant Dutch Republic and its flourishing book trade to explore the work that sowed the radical idea that religions could be considered on equal terms. Famed engraver Bernard Picart and author and publisher Jean Frederic Bernard produced The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of All the Peoples of the World, which appeared in the first of seven folio volumes in 1723. They put religion in comparative perspective, offering images and analysis of Jews, Catholics, Muslims, the peoples of the Orient and the Americas, Protestants, deists, freemasons, and assorted sects. Despite condemnation by the Catholic Church, the work was a resounding success. For the next century it was copied or adapted, but without the context of its original radicalism and its debt to clandestine literature, English deists, and the philosophy of Spinoza. Ceremonies and Customs prepared the ground for religious toleration amid seemingly unending religious conflict, and demonstrated the impact of the global on Western consciousness. In this beautifully illustrated book, Hunt, Jacob, and Mijnhardt cast new light on the profound insight found in one book as it shaped the development of a modern, secular understanding of religion.

Picart and Bernard’s Religious Ceremonies of the World

The Book That Changed Europe

Margaret C. Jacob

Karen Halttunen

Jerrold Seigel

Richard Biernacki

Sonya O. Rose

William H. Sewell (Jr.)

Margaret R. Somers

A collection of engaging essays that look specifically at the effect of culturalism on history and sociology and propose new directions in the theory and practice of research.

New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture

Beyond the Cultural Turn

University Lynn Hunt

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