Norman Jones

This history tells the story of how the English, over three generations, adapted to the religious changes forced upon them by the Reformation and, in doing so, radically reconstructed their culture.

Religion and Cultural Adaption

The English Reformation

Why, in our supposedly secular age, does the Bible feature prominently in so many influential and innovative works of contemporary U.S. literature? More pointedly, why would a book indelibly allied with a long history of institutionalized oppressions play a supporting role—and not simply as an object of critique—in a wide variety of landmark literary representations of marginalized subjectivities? The answers to these questions go beyond mere playful re-appropriations or subversive resignifications of biblical themes, figures, and forms. This book shows how certain contemporary authors invoke the Bible in ways that undermine clear distinctions between "subversive" and "traditional"—indeed, that undermine clear distinctions between "secular" and "sacred." By tracing a key source of such complex literary invocations of the Bible back to William Faulkner’s major novels, Provincializing the Bible argues that these literary works, which might be termed postsecular, ironically provincialize the Bible as a means of reevaluating and revalorizing its significance in contemporary American culture.

Faulkner and Postsecular American Literature

Provincializing the Bible

Managing early modern England was difficult because the state was weak. Although Queen Elizabeth was the supreme ruler, she had little bureaucracy, no standing army, and no police force. This meant that her chief manager, Lord Burghley, had to work with the gentlemen of the magisterial classes in order to keep the peace and defend the realm. He did this successfully by employing the shared value systems of the ruling classes, an improved information system, and gentle coercion. Using Burghley's archive, Governing by Virtue explores how he ran a state whose employees were venal, who owned their jobs for life, or whose power derived from birth and possession, not allegiance, even during national crises like that of the Spanish Armada.

Lord Burghley and the Management of Elizabethan England

Governing by Virtue

Tomasz Wierzbicki

Structural Crashworthiness

C. A. Brebbia

This text examines the interaction between blast pressure and surface or underground structures, whether the blast is from civilian, military, dust and natural explosions, or any other source.

Norman Jones

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