Skip to content
You are not logged in |Login  
     
Limit search to available items
Record:   Prev Next
Resources
More Information
Bestseller
BestsellerE-book
Author Graham, Michael F.

Title The blasphemies of Thomas Aikenhead : boundaries of belief on the eve of the enlightenment / Michael F. Graham.

Publication Info. Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, [2008]
©2008

Item Status

Description 1 online resource (xi, 180 pages) : 1 illustration, 2 maps
text file
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary "This is the first modern, book-length study of the case of Thomas Aikenhead, the sometime University of Edinburgh student who in 1697 earned the unfortunate distinction of being the last person executed for blasphemy in Britain." "Taking a micro-historical approach, Michael F. Graham uses the Aikenhead case to open a window into the world of late-seventeenth-century Edinburgh and Scotland. This book brings together many of the critical themes in Scottish and British history in a period of transition from the confessional era of the Reformation - which emphasised the defence of orthodox belief to the more open civil society and polite, literary world of the Enlightenment, of which Edinburgh would become a major centre." "Graham traces the roots of the Aikenhead case in seventeenth-century Scotland and the law of blasphemy which was evolving in response to the new intellectual currents of biblical criticism and deism. He analyses Aikenhead's trial and the Scottish government's decision to uphold the sentence of hanging. Finally, he details the debate stimulated by the execution, carried out in a public sphere of print media encompassing both Scotland and England. Aikenhead's case became a media event which highlighted the intellectual and cultural divisions within Britain at the end of the seventeenth century."--Jacket.
Contents Contents; Abbreviations; A Note on the Text; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Edinburgh and Scotland in the 1690s; The Politics of Blasphemy; 'So unnaturall a seasone': The Dreadful Year 1696; The Making of a Blasphemer; Trial and Execution; The Aftermath: Public Opinion in Scotland and England; Conclusion; Bibliography of Works Cited; Index.
Local Note eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America
Subject Aikenhead, Thomas, 1676-1697 -- Trials, litigation, etc.
Aikenhead, Thomas, 1676-1697.
Aikenhead, Thomas, 1676-1697 -- Death and burial.
Aikenhead, Thomas, 1676-1697.
Aikenhead, Thomas, -1697 -- Trials, litigation, etc.
Aikenhead, Thomas.
Trials (Blasphemy) -- Scotland -- Edinburgh.
Trials (Blasphemy)
Scotland -- Edinburgh.
Enlightenment -- Scotland.
Enlightenment.
Scotland.
Chronological Term Geistesgeschichte 1697
Genre/Form Electronic books.
Trial and arbitral proceedings.
Trial and arbitral proceedings.
Other Form: Print version: Graham, Michael F. Blasphemies of Thomas Aikenhead. Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, ©2008 (OCoLC)226360329
ISBN 0748634274 (electronic book)
9780748634279 (electronic book)
1281947768
9781281947765
9780748634262 (hardback)
0748634266 (hardback)