TY - BOOK AU - Lundin,Matthew TI - Paper memory: a sixteenth-century townsman writes his world T2 - Harvard historical studies SN - 0674067657 AV - DD901.C77 W46 2012 U1 - 943/.551403092B 23 PY - 2012/// CY - Cambridge, Mass. PB - Harvard University Press KW - Weinsberg, Hermann von, KW - Catholic Church KW - History KW - 16th century KW - Église catholique KW - Histoire KW - 16e siècle KW - fast KW - City council members KW - Germany KW - Cologne KW - Biography KW - Diarists KW - Conseillers municipaux KW - Allemagne KW - Biographies KW - BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY KW - Historical KW - bisacsh KW - HISTORY KW - Europe KW - Renaissance KW - Civilization KW - Intellectual life KW - Manners and customs KW - Geschiedbronnen KW - gtt KW - Cologne (Germany) KW - Social life and customs KW - Church history KW - Civilisation KW - Vie intellectuelle KW - Histoire religieuse KW - Keulen (stad) KW - Multi-User KW - Electronic books KW - lcgft KW - rvmgf N1 - Includes bibliographical references (pages 305-315) and index; Frontmatter --; Contents --; Introduction --; Chapter one A Secret Legacy --; Chapter two My Father's House --; Chapter three The Patriarch --; Chapter four The Middle Is Best --; Chapter five A Holy Household --; Chapter six As If We Had Never Been --; Chapter seven Spare No Quill, Ink, or Paper --; Chapter eight A New World --; Conclusion --; Notes --; Bibliography --; Acknowledgments --; Index N2 - Paper Memory tells of one man's mission to preserve for posterity the memory of everyday life in sixteenth-century Germany. Lundin takes us inside the mind of an undistinguished German burgher, Hermann Weinsberg, whose early-modern writings sought to make sense of changes that were unsettling the foundations of his world; Paper Memory tells the story of one man's mission to preserve for posterity the memory of everyday life in sixteenth-century Germany. Matthew Lundin takes us inside the mind of an undistinguished German burgher named Hermann Weinsberg, whose personal writings allow us to witness firsthand the great transformations of early modernity: the crisis of the Reformation, the rise of an urban middle class, and the information explosion of the print revolution. This sensitive, faithful portrait reveals a man who sought to make sense of the changes that were unsettling the foundations of his world. Weinsberg's decision to undertake the monumental task of documenting his life was astonishing, since he was neither prince nor bishop, but a Catholic lawyer from Cologne with no special claim to fame or fortune. Although he knew that his contemporaries would consider his work vain and foolish, he dutifully recorded the details of his existence, from descriptions of favorite meals to catalogs of his sleeping habits, from the gossip of quarreling neighbors to confessions of his private hopes, fears, and beliefs. More than fifty years--and thousands of pages--later, Weinsberg conferred his Gedenkbuch, or Memory Book, to his descendants, charging them to ensure its safekeeping, for without his careful chronicle, "it would be as if we had never been." Desperate to save his past from oblivion, Weinsberg hoped to write himself into the historical record. Paper Memory rescues this not-so-ordinary man from obscurity, as Lundin's perceptive and graceful prose recovers his extraordinary story UR - https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&AN=494494 ER -