Catherine Martin - Böcker

Milton and the New Scientific Age represents significant advantages over all previous volumes on the subject of Milton and science, as it includes contributions from top scholars and prominent beginners in a broad number of fields. Most of these fields have long dominated work in both Milton and seventeenth-century studies, but they have previously not included the relatively new and revolutionary topic of early modern chemistry, physiology, and medicine. Previously this subject was confined to the history of science, with little if any attention to its literary development, even though it prominently appears in John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which also includes early "science fiction" speculations on aliens ignored by most readers. Both of these oversights are corrected in this essay collection, while more traditional areas of research have been updated. They include Milton’s relationship both to Bacon and the later or Royal Society Baconians, his views on astronomy, and his "vitalist" views on biology and cosmology. In treating these topics, our contributors are not mired in speculations about whether or not Milton was on the cutting edge of early science or science fiction, for, as nearly all of them show, the idea of a "cutting edge" is deeply anachronistic at a time when most scientists and scientific enthusiasts held both fully modern and backward-looking beliefs. By treating these combinations contextually, Milton’s literary contributions to the "new science" are significantly clarified along with his many contemporary sources, all of which merit study in their own right.

This book joins a growing trend toward transnational literary studies and revives a venerable tradition of Anglo-Italian scholarship centering on John Milton. Correcting misperceptions that have diminished the international dimensions of his life and work, it broadly surveys Milton’s Italianate studies, travels, poetics, politics, and religious convictions. While his debts to Machiavelli and other classical republicans are often noted, few contemporary critics have explored the Italian sources of his anti-papal, anti-episcopal, and anti-formalist religious outlook. Relying on Milton’s own testimony, this book explores its roots in Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, and that great "Venetian enemy of the pope," Paolo Sarpi, thereby correcting a recent tendency to make native English contexts dominate his development. This tendency is partly due to a mistaken belief that Italy was in steep decline during and after Milton’s travels of 1638-1639, the period immediately before he produced his prose critiques of the English Church, its canon law, and its censorship. Yet these were also fundamentally "Italian" issues that he skillfully adapted to meet contemporary English needs, a practice enabled by his extraordinarily positive experience of the Italian language, cities, academies, and music, the latter of which ultimately influenced Milton’s "operatic" drama, Samson Agonistes. Besides republicanism and theology (radical doctrines of free grace and free will), equally strong influences treated here include Italian Neoplatonism, cosmology, and romance epic. By making these traditions his own, Milton became what John Steadman once described as an "Italianate Englishman" whose classical "literary tastes and critical orientation…were…to a considerable extent" molded by Italian critics (1976), a view that is fully credited and updated here.

Paediatric Neurosurgery for Nurses: Evidence-based care for children and their families provides accessible and up-to-date information for nurses working in paediatric neurosurgery. Referring throughout to the evidence-base for care and interventions, this complex area is described and explained in a meaningful and easily understandable way.The text includes chapters on the underpinning knowledge and principles for the care of children who need neurosurgery as well as the following common neurological problems:Hydrocephalus Traumatic Brain Injury Craniosynostosis Brain Tumours Surgical management of epilepsy in children Cerebrovascular disorders Neural tube defects The complexity of the nervous system and principles of care are presented logically with points to consider and essential care clearly highlighted and, where available, evidence-based practice is presented. It includes a range of pedagogical features, such as chapter overviews and summaries, diagrams, sample care plans, text boxes and a glossary. This book is essential reading for pre-registration nursing students and newly qualified nurses but will also be of use to allied healthcare professionals working with children and young people requiring neurosurgery.

Paediatric Neurosurgery for Nurses: Evidence-based care for children and their families provides accessible and up-to-date information for nurses working in paediatric neurosurgery. Referring throughout to the evidence-base for care and interventions, this complex area is described and explained in a meaningful and easily understandable way.The text includes chapters on the underpinning knowledge and principles for the care of children who need neurosurgery as well as the following common neurological problems:Hydrocephalus Traumatic Brain Injury Craniosynostosis Brain Tumours Surgical management of epilepsy in children Cerebrovascular disorders Neural tube defects The complexity of the nervous system and principles of care are presented logically with points to consider and essential care clearly highlighted and, where available, evidence-based practice is presented. It includes a range of pedagogical features, such as chapter overviews and summaries, diagrams, sample care plans, text boxes and a glossary. This book is essential reading for pre-registration nursing students and newly qualified nurses but will also be of use to allied healthcare professionals working with children and young people requiring neurosurgery.