Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World

by Jeffrey Burton Russell

Overview

An excellent and important intellectual history.―Library Journal

Using examples from theology, philosophy, art, literature, and popular culture, Russell describes the great changes effected in our idea of the Devil by the intellectual and cultural developments of modern times.

Mephistopheles is the fourth and final volume of Jeffrey Burton Russell's critically acclaimed history of the concept of the Devil. The series constitutes the most complete historical study ever made of the figure called the second most famous personage in Christianity. In the first three volumes, the author brought the history of Christian diabology to the end of the Middle Ages. This volume continues the story from the Reformation to the present, tracing the fragmentation of the tradition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801497186
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	02/22/1990
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	252,551
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jeffrey Burton Russell is Professor of History Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Table of Contents

Preface 1. Evil2. The Reformed Devil3. The Devil between Two Worlds4. Satan Expiring5. The Romantic Devil6. The DeviI's Shadow7. The Devil in a Warring World8. God and DevilBibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Jeffrey Burton Russell is not only a conscientious historian, he is also an introspective essayist who acknowledges his own continuing struggle to understand the nature and the source of evil.

Robert Coles

This book moves with sustained seriousness and brilliance across five centuries, from Luther's time to our own... and, although it has all the virtues of great intellectual history, it is explicitly rooted in a profound moral analysis of our own era.

National Review - M. D. Aeschliman

An excellent and important intellectual history.

-- "Library Journal"

It is more than the history of demonological imagination as it has been displayed for half a millennium in theological controversies, in poetry, novels, paintings, and witch trials: it is the history of European man trying to cope with the terrifying riddle of radical evil.... Both an extremely rich scholarly work and an exiquisite exercise in a topic that is unlikely ever to die off in our civilization.

--Leslek Kolakowski "Journal of Modern History"

Jeffrey Burton Russell is not only a conscientious historian, he is also an introspective essayist who acknowledges his own continuing struggle to understand the nature and the source of evil.

--Robert Coles "New York Times Book Review"

No few sentences can adequately convey the book's richness of content and seriousness of purpose. Russell has without doubt bequeathed us a magnificent synthesis of Western culture's modern, tortuous grappling with the ideas of radical evil and the devil.

--Brian Easlea "American Historical Review"

This book moves with sustained seriousness and brilliance across five centuries, from Luther's time to our own... and, although it has all the virtues of great intellectual history, it is explicitly rooted in a profound moral analysis of our own era.

--M. D. Aeschliman "National Review"

From the Publisher

No few sentences can adequately convey the book's richness of content and seriousness of purpose. Russell has without doubt bequeathed us a magnificent synthesis of Western culture's modern, tortuous grappling with the ideas of radical evil and the devil.

American Historical Review - Brian Easlea

This volume completes Russell's history of the concept of the Devil from antiquity to the present. (The series includes The Devil, Cornell, 1977; Satan, LJ 10/15/81; and Lucifer , LJ 11/15/84.) The concept, fragmented somewhat by the Reformation and even more by the rise of rationalism, became in the 19th century a powerful symbol of rebellion against aristocracy and ``an ironic metaphor of the corruption and foolishness of humanity.'' In the 20th century genocide has made the Devil theologically and philosophically an issue. Russell largely succeeds in being the objective historian who carefully pursues the persistence of this concept in popular culture, art, literature, philosophy, and theology. An excellent and important intellectual history. Carolyn M. Craft, English, Philosophy, & Modern Language Dept., Longwood Coll., Farmville, Va.

Library Journal

It is more than the history of demonological imagination as it has been displayed for half a millennium in theological controversies, in poetry, novels, paintings, and witch trials: it is the history of European man trying to cope with the terrifying riddle of radical evil.... Both an extremely rich scholarly work and an exiquisite exercise in a topic that is unlikely ever to die off in our civilization.

Journal of Modern History - Leslek Kolakowski

No few sentences can adequately convey the book's richness of content and seriousness of purpose. Russell has without doubt bequeathed us a magnificent synthesis of Western culture's modern, tortuous grappling with the ideas of radical evil and the devil.

Brian Easlean Historical Review