A vigilant society : Jewish thought and the state in medieval Spain / Javier Roiz ; translated by Selma L. Margaretten.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Roiz, Javier.

Contributor:

Margaretten, Selma L.

Standardized Title:

Sociedad vigilante y mundo judío en la concepción del estado. English

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Judaism and politics--History.

Judaism and politics.

Political science--History.

Political science.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (328 p.)

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, c2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

A Vigilant Society presents a provocative hypothesis that argues that Western society as we know it emerged from the soil of Jewish intellectual advances in the thirteenth century, especially those formulated on the Iberian Peninsula. A paradigmatic shift began to occur, one that abandoned the pre–Gothic Sephardic wisdom found in, for example, the writings of Maimonides in favor of what author Javier Roiz calls the "vigilant society." This model embraces a conception of politics that includes a radical privatization of an individual's interior life and—especially as adopted and adapted in later centuries by Roman Catholic and Calvinist thinkers—is marked by a style of politics that accepts the dominance of power and control as given. Vigilant society laid the foundation for the Western understanding of politics and its institutions and remains pervasive in today's world.

Contents:

Knowledge and power

Moses Maimonides and the politics of dialectics

The Gothic world comes to the south

Kabbalah and political power

The Zohar

Toward a vigilant society

Conclusions.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781461921400

1461921406

9781438445649

1438445644

OCLC:

859687317