Prosperity and Plunder: European Catholic Monasteries in the Age of Revolution, 1650-1815 (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780521590907)

In the Catholic countries of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Europe, communities of monks and nuns were growing in number and wealth. They constructed vast buildings, dominated education, and played a large part in the practice and patronage of learning, music, and the arts. This lavishly-illustrated book offers a unique, comparative description of these communities--their wealth, growth, life, and importance--and then explains their catastrophic decline and fall between 1650 and 1815 by reforming rulers, the 'Enlightenment', and the French Revolution. Derek Beales, Professor Emeritus of Modern History, Cambridge, is a Fellow of both the Royal Historical Society and the British Academy. He has published numerous historical monographs including a book on musical history entitled, Mozart and the Habsburgs (Reeding, 1993) as well as articles in the New York Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement.

Author: Derek Beales
ISBN-10: 0521590906
ISBN-13: 9780521590907
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 07/24/2003
Pages: 414
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 3.04lbs
Size: 10.14h x 7.50w x 1.23d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 06/01/2004 pg. 1896