Nuns: A History of Convent Life - Softcover

Evangelisti, Silvia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199532052 ISBN 13: 9780199532056

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2008

Synopsis

Praised in The Atlantic Monthly as an "engrossing narrative," Nuns tells the fascinating stories of the women who have lived in religious communities during some of the most tumultuous years in European history. Drawing particularly on the nuns' own words, Silvia Evangelisti reveals their ideals and achievements, frustrations and failures, and their attempts to reach out to the society around them. She explores how they came to the cloister, how they responded to monastic discipline, and how they pursued their spiritual, intellectual, and missionary activities. Indeed, nuns often found a way to contribute to their communities by creating charities and schools, while a few exceptional women made names for themselves for their artistic talents or for establishing new convents. This book features the individual stories of some of the most outstanding historical figures, including Teresa of Avila, who set up over seventeen new convents. Evangelisti shows how these women were able to overcome some of the restrictions placed on women in their societies at large. In doing so, she provides a fascinating and rarely seen glimpse into their intriguing world.

About this title

About the Author

Silvia Evangelisti is Lecturer in Early Modern History in the School of History at the University of East Anglia.

Review

UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "Review from previous edition [This] books provides a meticulously researched background to our contemporary interest. This is an elegantly argued, highly readable history of women whose lives have, until recently, remained shrouded beneath fears and prejudices."--Julie Wheelwright, The Independent (Extra)

UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "Nuns is a serious book by a serious thinker...Evangelisti is a conscientious historian with a wonderful subject...[a] meticulously researched history."--Mary Wakefield, Daily Telegraph (Review)

UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "A rich and direct insight into convent life."--Judith Champ, The Tablet

UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "[An] important new book."--Jonathan Wright, New Statesman

UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "[A] fascinating book...It is a powerful record and a fine contribution to the history of women."--Joan Bakewell, Sunday Times

UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "This graphic, elegantly composed and often piognant study stands out in its attempt to weigh the positive and negative aspects of the convent experience."--Olwen Hufton, BBC History

UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "A richly researched book... and one that constantly manages to surprise."--The Times

UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "A radically different and intriguing picture."--The Economist

UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "Nuns is a serious and readable study of convent life: it rescues from history the lives of women whom British and American feminists have tended to ignore because they have generally searched in secular places."--Mary Kenny, Literary Review

UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "this is an elegantly argued, highly readable history of women whose lives have, until recently, remained shrouded beneath fears and prejudices."--Julie Wainwright, The Monday Book, The Independent

UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "...a highly readable text..."--S. Karly Kehoe, University of Guelph

"Masterful...a tapestry that succeeds in combining serious scholarship with a writing style that is accessible to the lay reader...Evangelisti writes with authority and insight into the 250-year struggle to negotiate the complex tension between enclosure and worldly involvement, silence and speech, class and wealth, contemplation and action. Nuns is a fascinating history of a period that gave us the style of religious life we know today, a history that models how women can learn to live with paradox and change as they give form to their desire to worship and serve." --Catholic News Service

"Rich and insightful...These women, in any age they might have lived, were extraordinary as they embraced their prayerful lived enthusiastically, while demonstrating effective leadershipa nd uncommon wisdom. This book is clearly that of a serious scholar who has the ability to make her prose come alive...In all its elegant detail this publication is a significant contribution." --Catholic Library World

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0199532052
• ISBN 13: 9780199532056
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 301