{"title":"Books by Carlo Ginzburg","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781421409900","title":"Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method","description":"More than twenty years after Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method was first published in English, this extraordinary collection remains a classic. The book brings together essays about Renaissance witchcraft, National Socialism, sixteenth-century Italian painting, Freud's wolf-man, and other topics. In the influential centerpiece of the volume Carlo Ginzburg places historical knowledge in a long tradition of cognitive practices and shows how a research strategy based on reading clues and traces embedded in the historical record reveals otherwise hidden information. Acknowledging his debt to art history, psychoanalysis, comparative religion, and anthropology, Ginzburg challenges us to retrieve these cultural and social dimensions. In his new preface, Ginzburg reflects on how easily we miss the context in which we read, write, and live. Only hindsight allows some understanding. He examines his own path in research during the 1970s and its relationship to the times, especially the political scenes of Italy and Germany. Was he influenced by the environment, he asks himself, and if so, how?Ginzburg uses his own experience to examine the elusive and constantly evolving nature of history and historical research.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56299235508597,"sku":"9781421409900","price":23.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781421409900_ccb29e53-7796-4dda-a5bb-a35586c6c970.jpg?v=1786019167"},{"product_id":"9781839760143","title":"Nevertheless","description":"\u003cb\u003eFrom the master of \"micro-history\" a reconstruction of two contrasting early-modern thinkers\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNevertheless comprises essays on Machiavelli and on Pascal. The ambivalent connection between the two parts is embodied by the comma (,) in the subtitle: Machiavelli, Pascal. Is this comma a conjunction or a disjunction?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn fact, both. Ginzburg approaches Machiavelli's work from the perspective of casuistry, or case-based ethical reasoning. For as Machiavelli indicated through his repeated use of the adverb nondimanco (\"nevertheless\"), there is an exception to every rule. Such a perspective may seem to echo the traditional image of Machiavelli as a cynical, \"machiavellian\" thinker. But a close analysis of Machiavelli the reader, as well as of the ways in which some of Machiavelli's most perceptive readers read his work, throws a different light on Machiavelli the writer. The same hermeneutic strategy inspires the essays on the Provinciales, Pascal's ferocious attack against Jesuitical casuistry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCasuistry vs anti-casuistry; Machiavelli's secular attitude towards religion vs Pascal's deep religiosity. We are confronted, apparently, with two completely different worlds. But Pascal read Machiavelli, and reflected deeply upon his work. A belated, contemporary echo of this reading can unveil the complex relationship between Machiavelli and Pascal - their divergences as well as their unexpected convergences.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56307662160245,"sku":"9781839760143","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781839760143_dd4aad1b-7c08-4b59-a16c-295b7a4b1274.jpg?v=1786027767"},{"product_id":"9780226674414","title":"Old Thiess, a Livonian Werewolf – A Classic Case in Comparative Perspective","description":"In 1691, a Livonian peasant known as Old Thiess boldly announced before a district court that he was a werewolf. Yet far from being a diabolical monster, he insisted, he was one of the “hounds of God,” fierce guardians who battled sorcerers, witches, and even Satan to protect the fields, flocks, and humanity—a baffling claim that attracted the notice of the judges then and still commands attention from historians today.    In this book, eminent scholars Carlo Ginzburg and Bruce Lincoln offer a uniquely comparative look at the trial and startling testimony of Old Thiess. They present the first English translation of the trial transcript, in which the man’s own voice can be heard, before turning to subsequent analyses of the event, which range from efforts to connect Old Thiess to shamanistic practices to the argument that he was reacting against cruel stereotypes of the “Livonian werewolf” a Germanic elite used to justify their rule over the Baltic peasantry. As Ginzburg and Lincoln debate their own and others’ perspectives, they also reflect on broader issues of historical theory, method, and politics. Part source text of the trial, part discussion of historians’ thoughts on the case, and part dialogue over the merits and perils of their different methodological approaches, Old Thiess, a Livonian Werewolf opens up fresh insight into a remarkable historical occurrence and, through it, the very discipline of history itself.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56311626793333,"sku":"9780226674414","price":27.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780226674414_8cb18380-c684-498b-a62d-5ddf43d1d59e.jpg?v=1786012644"},{"product_id":"9781421454634","title":"The Cheese and the Worms","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe fiftieth-anniversary edition of the classic tale of a sixteenth-century miller facing the Roman Inquisition.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Cheese and the Worms\u003c\/i\u003e is an incisive study of popular culture in the sixteenth century as seen through the eyes of one man, the miller known as Menocchio, who was accused of heresy during the Inquisition and sentenced to death. In the fiftieth anniversary edition of this now-classic book, Carlo Ginzburg uses the trial records to illustrate the religious and social conflicts of the society Menocchio lived in.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor a common miller, Menocchio was surprisingly literate. In his trial testimony, he made references to more than a dozen books, including the Bible, Boccaccio's \u003ci\u003eDecameron\u003c\/i\u003e, Mandeville's \u003ci\u003eTravels\u003c\/i\u003e, and a \"mysterious\" book that may have been the Koran. And what he read he recast in terms familiar to him, as in his own version of the creation: \"All was chaos, that is earth, air, water, and fire were mixed together; and of that bulk a mass formed—just as cheese is made out of milk—and worms appeared in it, and these were the angels.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGinzburg's massively influential book has been widely regarded as an early example of the analytic, case-oriented approach known as microhistory. In the preface, Ginzburg offers his own corollary to Menocchio's story as he considers the discrepancy between the intentions of the writer and what gets written. The Italian miller's story and Ginzburg's work continue to resonate with modern readers because they focus on how oral and written culture are inextricably linked. Menocchio's 500-year-old challenge to authority remains evocative and vital today.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56368849912181,"sku":"9781421454634","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781421454634_5916297a-0a99-4b2a-a4a8-f495f192fa19.jpg?v=1786034744"},{"product_id":"9781803095431","title":"Puzzles – A Seminar on the ′Benefit of Christ′","description":"A seminar, a sixteenth-century heretical text, and the art of slow reading—this is historical research as you’ve never seen it before.   Patience Games: A Seminar on the 'Benefit of Christ' invites readers into the unpredictable world of scholarly discovery, where interpretation is not a straight path but a labyrinth of dialogue revision. At the heart of this book is a seminar held forty years ago at the University of Bologna, where students wrestled with The Beneficio di Cristo, the incendiary sixteenth-century text that questioned Church authority and championed salvation through grace alone. This is not a neatly packaged historical study, however—it is an unfiltered look at the errors and insights that emerge in the collective process of reading and debating a text.    Through shifting hypotheses and the sheer unpredictability of research, Patience Games dismantles the illusion of scholarship as a sterile pursuit, revealing instead a messy, deeply human endeavor. Blending sharp analysis with wit and self-irony, the book makes a compelling case for the continued importance of slow reading—even in an age where knowledge is just a click away.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56369205739893,"sku":"9781803095431","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781803095431.jpg?v=1791212801"},{"product_id":"night-battles","title":"The Night Battles","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe classic study of witchcraft and popular belief, newly revisited.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA landmark of microhistory, \u003ci\u003eThe Night Battles\u003c\/i\u003e remains one of the most daring and influential investigations of witchcraft and popular belief in early modern Europe. Through meticulous research in the inquisitorial archives of northern Italy, Carlo Ginzburg reconstructs the story of the benandanti—the \"good walkers\"—peasants of the Friuli region who claimed that, while their bodies slept, their spirits journeyed into the night to battle witches and warlocks in defense of their crops and communities.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eArmed with fennel stalks, these benandanti fought for fertility and abundance. To the inquisitors who interrogated them, however, such nocturnal visions could only signify diabolical witchcraft. Over decades of questioning and reinterpretation, a profound cultural clash unfolded, and the benandanti were gradually transformed from defenders of the harvest into supposed participants in the witches' sabbat. From this richly documented case, Ginzburg advances a bold hypothesis: that across Europe, elements of agrarian and ecstatic traditions were recast under pressure from ecclesiastical authorities into the stereotype of satanic conspiracy. The Friulian trials, exceptional in their detail, offered what he would later call an \"exemplary case\"—a fragment of testimony that illuminates broader historical processes.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn a substantial new afterword, Ginzburg reflects on the role of chance discovery in archival research, the dialogue between history and anthropology, and the personal and intellectual forces that shaped his inquiry. Revisiting his own encounter with the voices of the accused, he offers a rare meditation on historical method, perspective, and the moral ambiguities of studying persecution.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57504757186933,"sku":"9781421455570","price":23.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781421455570.jpg?v=1786953675"},{"product_id":"fear-reverence-terror","title":"Fear Reverence Terror","description":"An invitation to slow down our looking and attend to the power structures embedded in images.  We are surrounded by images, fairly drowning in them. From our cell phones to our computers, from our televisions at home to the screens that light up while we wait in the grocery store checkout line, images of all kinds are seducing us, commanding us to buy, scaring us, dazzling us.   Fear, Reverence, Terror invites us to look at images slowly, with the help of a few examples: Picasso’s Guernica, the “Lord Kitchener Wants You” World War I recruitment poster, Jacques-Louis David’s Marat, the frontispiece of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, and a cup of gilded silver with scenes from the conquest of the New World. Are these political images, Carlo Ginzburg asks? Yes, because every image is, in a sense, political—an instrument of power. Tacitus once wrote, unforgettably, that we are enslaved by lies of which we ourselves are the authors. Is it possible to break this bond? Fear, Reverence, Terror will answer this question.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57507770958197,"sku":"9781803097008","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"the-soul-of-brutes","title":"The Soul of Brutes","description":"A collection of diverse yet interconnected essays from one of the world’s most respected historians.    Carlo Ginzburg has been at the forefront of the discipline of microhistory ever since his earliest works were published to great acclaim in the 1970s. The Soul of Brutes brings together four of Ginzburg’s recent scintillating essays and lectures that testify to the diversity of his thoughts on history and philosophy.      “Civilization and Barbarism” resurrects a sixteenth-century debate between two thinkers in Spain about the humanness, or lack thereof, of Native Americans, and highlights the influence of classical thinkers, from Herodotus to Aristotle, and the iterations and interpretations through which their writings have traversed down to the Cinquecento. In “The Soul of Brutes” Ginzburg traces the genealogy of the debate on the rationality of animals and the limits of their imagination, from Plutarch and Aristotle to sixteenth-century thinkers like Pietro Pomponazzi and Girolamo Rorario. Following Montaigne, he provokes, are we to beasts as they seem to us? In “Calvino, Manzoni and the Grey Zone,” Carlo Ginzburg pithily writes about the mental dialogue between Holocaust survivor Primo Levi and two Italians who profoundly influenced Levi’s search for these “unexplored pockets of exception”—his contemporary Italo Calvino and the nineteenth-century novelist and philosopher Alessandro Manzoni. And finally, in “Schema and Bias”, he probes whether the historian can clearly see into the past, peering through the layers of bias, which include their own prejudices, or if relativism is the only path.      With several beautifully reproduced color illustrations, The Soul of Brutes will interest not only scholars of history, philosophy, and art, but also general intellectual readers.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57695307727221,"sku":"9781803090726","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781803090726.jpg?v=1793033232"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-carlo-ginzburg.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}