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August 27, 2007
Norman Cohn, r.i.p.
The Times Literary Supplement included his seminal 1957 book, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, in a 1995 list of the 100 nonfiction works with the greatest influence on how postwar Europeans perceive themselves. Other books on the list were by Camus, Sartre and Foucault.Beginning with the Crusades and concluding with 16th-century Anabaptists, Mr. Cohn showed in this book how the desire of the poor to improve their lot merged with prophecies of a final struggle between Christ and Antichrist, to be followed by the emergence of a new paradise.
“In situations of mass disorientation and anxiety, traditional beliefs about a future golden age or messianic kingdom came to serve as vehicles for social aspirations and animosities,” he wrote.
It really is hard to overstate the importance of this book. Cohn was a great scholar.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at August 27, 2007 7:09 AM