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Russell Shorto

Russell Shorto Books

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“In asking for a relic of Descartes, the chevalier de Terlon was standing at the crossroads of the ancient and modern. He was applying to a modern thinker - the inventor of analytic geometry, no less - a primitive tradition that extends back not only to the institutionalization of Christianity in the fourth century, when Christians first broke into the tombs of saints to gather relics, but farther still, beyond the horizon of recorded history. The request is all the stranger for the fact that the man whose remains were treated in this quasisaintlike way would go down in history as the progenitor of materialism, rationalism, and a whole tradition that looked on such veneration as nonsense.”

ReasonFaith
Book:Descartes' Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict between Faith and Reason
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“Opinions differ on the question of whether a golden age is something you can experience while it's happening or whether it only comes into focus on reflection...no matter how grand and prosperous and momentous the time in which you are living may be, its grandeur is inevitably stained by the incessant drabness of the present.”

HollandAmsterdamNetherlandsDutch History
Book:Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City
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“[Charles the Fifth], pretty much every way worked to hold up the pillars of the medieval world order: monarchic power, domination by the Catholic Church, feudal land management, divine right, mercantile colonialization, and obedience to authority along the strict metaphysical line of the great chain of being.”

Medieval EuropeHoly Roman EmpireCharles The FifthMedieval World Order
Book:Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City
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“Henry Hudson was in his forties when he stepped into the light of history, a seasoned mariner, a man with a strong and resourceful wife and three sons, a man born and raised not only to the sea but to the quest for a northern passage to Asia, who, weaned from infancy on the legends of his predecessors, probably couldn't help but be obsessed by it.”

New York CityHenry HudsonHudson River Expedition
Book:The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America
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“For liberalism is a delicate thing. It encompasses so much -- constitutional government, democratic elections, freedom of worship, civil rights, free trade -- that we think of it as timeless and universal. But liberalism came into being in a real place and time, like a flame it has wavered in various eras, and it can be snuffed out.”

ThinkingRealGovernmentRightsWorshipUniversalElectionTradeDemocraticVariousCivil RightsErasFlamesLiberalismDelicateTimelessFree TradeConstitutional GovernmentPlace And TimeDelicate ThingsDemocratic Elections
Author:Russell Shorto
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“Embedded in this outlook is an idea of the body as a machine, so that illness is seen as a breakdown of the machine, healing involves repairing the broken parts, and a doctor is a kind of mechanic with medications as his or her tools.”

KindIdeasBodyHealingBrokenToolsDoctorsMachinesIllnessMechanicOutlookBreakdownMedicationEmbeddedRepairing
Book:Descartes' Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict between Faith and Reason
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