The Disciplinary Revolution
Subtitle: Calvinism and the Rise of the State in Early Modern Europe
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Published: July 1, 2003
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 264
ISBN-13: 9780226304847
Subjects: Continental European Reformed Churches; European history: c 1500 to c 1750; History; Archaeology / Anthropology; History: World; Anthropology - Cultural; Europe - General; Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural; Christian sociology; Church and state; Europe; Reformed Church
First sentence: The differences between the theoretical perspective advanced here and the one adopted in most work on state formation can be easily grasped in terms of a common metaphor, the metaphor of the body politic, and, more specifically, by means of one of its better-known representations, the frontispiece to the first edition of Hobbes's Leviathan (see opposite page).
Description: What explains the rapid growth of state power in early modern Europe? While most scholars have pointed to the impact of military or capitalist revolutions, Philip S. Gorski argues instead for the importance of a disciplinary revolution unleashed by the Reformation.