Self-help from the Middle Ages : what the seven deadly sins can teach us about living / Peter Jones.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jones, Peter, 1942 April 25- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Civilization, Medieval.

Christian ethics--History--Middle Ages, 600-1500.

Christian ethics.

Deadly sins.

Conduct of life.

Christian life.

English literature--Old English, ca. 450-1100--History and criticism.

English literature.

ethics (philosophical concept).

Genre:

Informational works.

Physical Description:

360 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm.

Edition:

First Doubleday hardcover edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Doubleday, 2026.

Summary:

"From historian Peter Jones comes a surprising and insightful guide to navigating contemporary life through the wisdom of the Middle Ages. A few years ago, Peter Jones was teaching medieval history at a university in Siberia when living through his third icy winter tipped him into a dark place. Luckily, he knew something few of us know: that The Middle Ages were the golden age of self-help. In Self-Help from the Middle Ages, history professor Peter Jones makes the case that never in history has so much energy and talent gone into studying how the mind works. In this charming and illuminating guide, he reveals a lost map of our passions and impulses that can help us understand our own human struggles in new and powerful ways. Because although we now think of the Seven Deadly Sins as a catalog of forbidden behavior, in the Middle Ages, when they were at the height of their popularity, they were a path to self-knowledge. A psychological map that laid out seven basic patterns of thought, showing how our thinking can go astray and how we can find our way home. With beautiful illustrations drawn from medieval art and literature, Peter Jones explores the lives of scholars and saints, mystics and monarchs, along with the insights they offer into temptation, frustration, addiction, compulsion, burnout, rage, fear, anxiety, and grief. Self-Help from the Middle Ages is an irresistible read for lovers of history and all those who seek wisdom from the past"-- Provided by publisher

Contents:

The seven. Pride

Envy

Anger

Sloth

Avarice

Gluttony

Lust

The seven, again

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Picture credits

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 269-345) and index.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Jones Fund bookplate.

ISBN:

0385551681

9780385551687

OCLC:

1523021528