{"product_id":"beyond-the-persecuting-society-john-christian-laursen-9780812215670","title":"Beyond the Persecuting Society: Religious Toleration Before the Enlightenment","description":"\u003cp\u003eThere is a myth--easily shattered--that Western societies since the Enlightenment have been dedicated to the ideal of protecting the differences between individuals and groups, and another--too readily accepted--that before the rise of secularism in the modern period, intolerance and persecution held sway throughout Europe. In \u003ci\u003eBeyond the Persecuting Society\u003c\/i\u003e John Christian Laursen, Cary J. Nederman, and nine other scholars dismantle this second generalization. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIf intolerance and religious persecution have been at the root of some of the greatest suffering in human history, it is nevertheless the case that toleration was practiced and theorized in medieval and early modern Europe on a scale few have realized: Christians and Jews, the English, French, Germans, Dutch, Swiss, Italians, and Spanish had their proponents of and experiments with tolerance well before John Locke penned his famous Letter Concerning Toleration. Moving from Abelard to Aphra Behn, from the apology for the gentiles of the fourteenth-century Talmudic scholar, Menahem ben Solomon Ha-MeIiri, to the rejection of intolerance in the \"New Israel\" of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, \u003ci\u003eBeyond the Persecuting Society\u003c\/i\u003e offers a detailed and decisive correction to a vision of the past as any less complex in its embrace and abhorrence of diversity than the present.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e John Christian Laursen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0812215672\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780812215670\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Pennsylvania Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 01\/01\/1997\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 296\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.02lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.93h x 5.98w x 0.75d","brand":"John Christian Laursen","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":47304778285311,"sku":"9780812215670","price":34.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_a6658773-250b-467c-9126-423fc0fbdd5b.jpg?v=1758829139","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/beyond-the-persecuting-society-john-christian-laursen-9780812215670","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}