William J. Bouwsma – författare

Professor Bouwsma studies the theologian John Calvin as a way to bring into focus the cultural, psychological, and intellectual problems of the sixteenth century. He argues that Calvin represents an historical moment of transition from traditional modes of philosophical and religious thought to modern ones. Beginning with a description of the traditional culture of Calvin's time, and of the moralism which exerted such a powerful hold over medieval thought, he goes on to identify the crucial issue in this transition as the ability of a culture to manage the anxiety of existence. Medieval society, by creating simplified polarities such as Good and Evil, he argues, was conspicuously successful in performing this task. Finally Bouwsma provides a critical analysis of this medieval philosophy, and explains the significance of Calvin's concept of a "New Order" in providing an ethical system which no longer relied upon these established views of the world.

Historians have conventionally viewed intellectual and artistic achievement as a seamless progression in a single direction, with the Renaissance, as identified by Jacob Burckhardt, as the root and foundation of modern culture. But in this brilliant new analysis William Bouwsma rethinks the accepted view, arguing that while the Renaissance had a beginning and, unquestionably, a climax, it also had an ending.Examining the careers of some of the greatest figures of the age—Montaigne, Galileo, Jonson, Descartes, Hooker, Shakespeare, and Cervantes among many others—Bouwsma perceives in their work a growing sense of doubt and anxiety about the modern world. He considers first those features of modern European culture generally associated with the traditional Renaissance, features which reached their climax in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. But even as the movements of the Renaissance gathered strength, simultaneous impulses operated in a contrary direction. Bouwsma identifies a growing concern with personal identity, shifts in the interests of major thinkers, a decline in confidence about the future, and a heightening of anxiety.Exploring the fluctuating and sometimes contradictory atmosphere in which Renaissance artists and thinkers operated, Bouwsma shows how the very liberation from old boundaries and modes of expression that characterized the Renaissance became itself increasingly stifling and destructive. By drawing attention to the waning of the Renaissance culture of freedom and creativity, Bouwsma offers a wholly new and intriguing interpretation of the place of the European Renaissance in modern culture.

The essays assembled here represent forty years of reflection about the European cultural past by an eminent historian. The volume concentrates on the Renaissance and Reformation, while providing a lens through which to view problems of perennial interest. A Usable Past is a book of unusual scope, touching on such topics as political thought and historiography, metaphysical and practical conceptions of order, the relevance of Renaissance humanism to Protestant thought, the secularization of European culture, the contributions of particular professional groups to European civilization, and the teaching of history. The essays in A Usable Past are unified by a set of common concerns. William Bouwsma has always resisted the pretensions to science that have shaped much recent historical scholarship and made the work of historians increasingly specialized and inaccessible to lay readers. Following Friedrich Nietzsche, he argues that since history is a kind of public utility, historical research should contribute to the self-understanding of society.

Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty: Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter Reformation by William J. Bouwsma recasts the history of the Renaissance by shifting the spotlight from Florence to Venice. What began as a study of Paolo Sarpi expands into a sweeping exploration of how Venice, under pressure from papal interdicts, forged a distinctive republican ideology in opposition to the Counter-Reformation’s universalist claims. Two confrontations with Rome—Julius II’s interdict of 1509 and Paul V’s of 1606–07—frame the drama, marking both the rise of Venice as a self-conscious republic and the climax of its struggle for liberty against papal authority.Bouwsma situates Venice in dialogue with Florence, shaped by Machiavelli and Guicciardini, and with Rome, at once ancient empire and Counter-Reformation hub. Mining the writings of Venetian statesmen, historians, and political thinkers—canonical and obscure alike—he traces a century-long development of what he calls the Venetian political mind, a body of thought and historical reflection that once commanded Europe’s admiration before Florence eclipsed it in the nineteenth century. At stake is not only Venice’s neglected place in the Renaissance but also the larger question of how republican values persisted, adapted, and were defined against Rome’s claims to universality. In restoring Venice to center stage, Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty reframes the Renaissance as a pan-Italian and European story of competing visions of power, history, and freedom.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1968.