U of Pennsylvania Press, 2017. ISBN 978-0-8122-4970-5. 304 p. $79.95.
Compassion's Edge examines the language of fellow-feeling—pity, compassion, and charitable care—that flourished in France in the period from the Edict of Nantes in 1598, which established some degree of religious toleration, to the official breakdown of that toleration with the Revocation of the Edict in 1685. This is not, however, a story about compassion overcoming difference but one of compassion reinforcing division. Early modern fellow-feeling drew distinctions, policed its borders, and far from reaching out to others, kept the other at arm's length. This book ranges widely over genres, contexts, and geographies, taking up major figures such as D'Aubigné, Montaigne, Lafayette, Corneille, and Racine, as well as less familiar Jesuit theologians, Huguenot ministers, and nuns from a Montreal hospital. Investigating the affective undertow of religious toleration, Compassion's Edge provides a robust corrective to today's hope that fellow-feeling draws us inexorably and usefully together.
Full Description, Table of Contents, and More: http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15747.html