In The Monk and the Book, Megan Hale Williams argues that Saint Jerome was the first to represent biblical study as a mode of asceticism appropriate for an inhabitant of a Christian monastery, thus pioneering the enduring linkage of monastic identities and institutions with scholarship. Revisiting Jerome with the analytical tools of recent cultural history - including the work of Bourdieu, Foucault, and Roger Chartier-Williams proposes new interpretations that remove obstacles to understanding the life and legacy of the saint.

About the Author
Megan Hale Williams is associate professor of history at San Francisco State University. She is coauthor, with Anthony Grafton, of Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea.

Reviews
"A fascinating study, which provides a series of striking insights into the career of one of the most colorful and influential figures in Christian antiquity. Jerome's Latin Bible would become the foundational text for the intellectual development of the West, providing words for the deepest aspirations and most intensely held convictions of an entire civilization. Williams's book does much to illumine the circumstances in which that fundamental text was produced, and reminds us that great ideas, like great people, have particular origins, and their own complex settings." (Eamon Duffy, New York Review of Books) "Williams has written a provocative book, for it encourages us to look behind Jerome's rather difficult and oft-studied personal and theological conflicts with his contemporaries to view him in the light of his importance in the history of late-antique education and book culture." (Michele Renee Salzman, Speculum)"



Book Information
ISBN 9780226215303
Author Megan Hale Williams
Format Paperback
Page Count 312
Imprint University of Chicago Press
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 482g
Dimensions(mm) 23mm * 15mm * 2mm