The walking dead from 15 centuries haunt this compendium of ghostly visitations through the ages, exploring the history of our fascination with zombies and other restless souls.
Since ancient times, accounts of supernatural activity have mystified us. Ghost stories as we know them did not develop until the late nineteenth century, but the restless dead haunted the premodern imagination in many forms, as recorded in historical narratives, theological texts, and personal letters. The Penguin Book of the Undead teems with roving hordes of dead warriors, corpses trailed by packs of barking dogs, moaning phantoms haunting deserted ruins, evil spirits emerging from burning carcasses in the form of crows, and zombies with pestilential breath. Spanning from the Hebrew scriptures to the Roman Empire, the Scandinavian sagas to medieval Europe, the Protestant Reformation to the Renaissance, this beguiling array of accounts charts our relationship with spirits and apparitions, wraiths and demons over fifteen hundred years, showing the evolution in our thinking about the ability of dead souls to return to the realm of the living—and to warn us about what awaits us in the afterlife.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. Lees meer
A vivid history of how Protestantism was spread across the globe, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century “Mr. Ryrie has produced the rare book that deserves attention from both believers and skeptics.”—D.G. Hart, Wall Street Journal Protestantism revolutionised early modern Europe. Radical theologians transformed the lives of thousands across the continent, irrevocably changing politics and society. But what about beyond Europe’s borders? Was global Christianity just a Catholic endeavour? Alec Ryrie explores the untold history of how Protestants tried to spread their religion abroad, from Lapland to Chile and Barbados to Taiwan. At the story’s heart are the non-Christian people whom Protestants met more often than any others during this period: those they had enslaved in the Americas, Africa, and eastern Asia. We see how Protestants dealt with, or evaded, the moral failure of the slave trade, and how their missionary efforts were disappointments at best, utter fiascos at worst. Their world Reformation, its failures, and its consequences for both good and ill, has largely been forgotten. This fascinating history makes the case for why it is worth remembering. Lees meer
Hoe kan een kerk die naastenliefde predikt zich tegen haar eigen mensen keren? Adriaan Weterings volgt tweeduizend jaar kerkelijke macht: van voetwassing tot aflaat, ketterjacht en toegedekt misbruik. Lees meer