This is not simply true of the Western tradition, but also true in China, where Buddhism took root in conservative, Confucian China after a plague wiped out nearly half of the population. And disease can also give rise to a lack of faith -- McNeill suggests that the 18th century Enlightenment was spawned partly because industrialization and urbanization created fetid cities with poor sanitation, which gave rise to epidemics that caused people to doubt the existence of a caring God.
The discovery of the sources of diseases, like insects and rats, were undoubtedly a boon to mankind. Without the delousing of during World War I many soldiers would have caught communicable diseases from the pests, and knowledge of microbes enabled people to take precautions against the spread of illnesses throughout the 20th century, and our knowledge of how new illnesses are spread is never complete. In the developing world, the landscape continues to be shaped by disease. Today, long after McNeill wrote his book, this continues in Africa, with the AIDS epidemic, although, as he notes in his updated introduction, he does not believe that AIDS, compared to plagues of the past, is nearly as significant or as deadly as, for example, the bubonic plague in Europe.
Plagues continue to this day. Even during McNeill's first edition, the bubonic plague was still...
In 1682, the Quakers purchased East New Jersey. Penn then sought to extend the Quaker region. The King granted Penn a land charter, the area that is currently known as Pennsylvania, and that charter made Penn a sovereign ruler and the world's largest private landowner. Penn named the region Sylvania, but Charles II changed that to Pennsylvania, to honor Penn's father. (See Jacobson, pp. 43-55). Pennsylvania was a very interesting
William Blake was born in London in 1757, the son of a hosier. He attended a drawing school and was subsequently apprenticed to an engraver from 1772-9, before attending the Royal Academy as a student from 1779 to 1780. During this time he made his living as an engraver, producing illustrations for the book trade, and was also composing and illustrating his own poetical works. He married Catherine Boucher in
William Hogarth 18th century Britain was a society that was undergoing a great deal of political, economic, and social change. The British Parliament was developing the modern form of parliamentary democracy, complete with elections, a Prime Minister, and power residing with the people's representatives. And while the previous centuries had been plagued with religious and political strife, the 18th century would be based upon economics and commercialism. Britain underwent a dramatic
" The use of "coffins in black" as symbolism for death aptly justifies the use of the word "weep" to capture the abusive nature of the sweepers' work, not to mention the unfair conditions in work these young workers were forced to agree with. Lacking any choices or rights, the young, alienated sweepers became victims of moral degeneration, a condition only found in Blake's modern society. Abuse of the youth's innocence
John Milton and William Blake John Milton wrote work of poetry during the late 17th century. William Blake wourld write at the end of the 18th century and at the beginning of the following century. One lived during the tail end of the Restoration period and the other lived in the time of the Romantic poets. At a first glance, it would seem that the two poets John Milton and William
The fear and the misery cannot be escaped. The image here is of a town brimming with people and yet they are alienated and oppressed. One of the most powerful literary techniques Blake employs in the poem is irony. In the beginning of the poem, after Blake introduces the notion of misery, he follows it with the notion of freedom. Those in the city are no doubt free but they
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