Heaven on Earth

A glorious illustrated history of sixteen of the world's greatest cathedrals, interwoven with the extraordinary stories of the people who built them. 'An impeccable guide to the golden age of ecclesiastical architecture' The Times 'Vivid, colourful and absorbing' Dan Jones 'An epic ode to some of our most beautiful and beloved buildings' Helen Carr A glorious history of sixteen of the world’s greatest cathedrals, interwoven with the extraordinary stories of the people who built them. The emergence of the Gothic style in twelfth-century France, characterized by pointed arches, rib vaults, flying buttresses and large windows, forms the central core of Emma Wells’s authoritative but accessible study of the golden age of the cathedral. More than architectural biographies, these are human stories of triumph and tragedy that take the reader from the chaotic atmosphere of the mason’s yard to the cloisters of power. Together, they reveal how 1000 years of cathedral-building shaped modern Europe, and influenced art, culture and society around the world.

A glorious illustrated history of sixteen of the world's greatest cathedrals, interwoven with the extraordinary stories of the people who built them. 'An impeccable guide to the golden age of ecclesiastical architecture' The Times 'Vivid, colourful and absorbing' Dan Jones 'An epic ode to some of our most beautiful and beloved buildings' Helen Carr A glorious history of sixteen of the world’s greatest cathedrals, interwoven with the extraordinary stories of the people who built them. The emergence of the Gothic style in twelfth-century France, characterized by pointed arches, rib vaults, flying buttresses and large windows, forms the central core of Emma Wells’s authoritative but accessible study of the golden age of the cathedral. More than architectural biographies, these are human stories of triumph and tragedy that take the reader from the chaotic atmosphere of the mason’s yard to the cloisters of power. Together, they reveal how 1000 years of cathedral-building shaped modern Europe, and influenced art, culture and society around the world.

Socialism was man's most ambitious attempt to supplant religion with a doctrine claiming to ground itself in "science." Each failure to create societies of abundance or give birth to "the New Man" inspired more searching for the path to the promised land: revolution, communes, social democracy, communism, fascism, Arab socialism, African socialism. None worked, and some exacted a staggering human toll. Then, after two centuries of wishful thinking and bitter disappointment, socialism imploded in a fin de siecle drama of falling walls and collapsing regimes. It was an astonishing denouement but what followed was no less astonishing. After the hiatus of a couple of decades, new voices were raised, as if innocent of all that had come before, proposing to try it all over again. Joshua Muravchik traces the pursuit of this phantasm, presenting sketches of the thinkers and leaders who developed the theory, led it to power, and presided over its collapse, as well as those who are trying to revive it today. Heaven on Earth is a story filled with character and event while at the same time giving us an epic chronicle of a movement that tried to turn the world upside down-and for a time succeeded.

Socialism was man's most ambitious attempt to supplant religion with a doctrine claiming to ground itself in "science." Each failure to create societies of abundance or give birth to "the New Man" inspired more searching for the path to the promised land: revolution, communes, social democracy, communism, fascism, Arab socialism, African socialism. None worked, and some exacted a staggering human toll. Then, after two centuries of wishful thinking and bitter disappointment, socialism imploded in a fin de siecle drama of falling walls and collapsing regimes. It was an astonishing denouement but what followed was no less astonishing. After the hiatus of a couple of decades, new voices were raised, as if innocent of all that had come before, proposing to try it all over again. Joshua Muravchik traces the pursuit of this phantasm, presenting sketches of the thinkers and leaders who developed the theory, led it to power, and presided over its collapse, as well as those who are trying to revive it today. Heaven on Earth is a story filled with character and event while at the same time giving us an epic chronicle of a movement that tried to turn the world upside down-and for a time succeeded.

The idea of heaven on earth haunts the human imagination. The day will come, say believers, when the pain and confusion of mortal life will give way to a transfigured community. Such a vision of the world seems indelible. Even politics, some reckon, has not escaped from the realm of the sacred: its dreams of the future still borrow their imagery from the prophets. In Heaven on Earth , T.J. Clark sets out to investigate the very different ways painting has given form to the dream of God’s kingdom come. He goes back to the late Middle Ages and Renaissance – to Giotto in Padua, Bruegel facing the horrors of religious war, Poussin painting the Sacraments, Veronese unfolding the human comedy. Was it to painting’s advantage, is Clark’s question, that in an age of enforced orthodoxy (threats of hellfire, burnings at the stake) artists could reflect on the powers and limitations of religion without putting their thoughts into words? At the heart of the book stands Bruegel’s ironic but tender picture of The Land of Cockaigne , and also Veronese’s inscrutable Allegory of Love . The story ends with Picasso’s Fall of Icarus , made for UNESCO in 1958, which already seems to signal – perhaps to prescribe – an age when all futures are dead.

The idea of heaven on earth haunts the human imagination. The day will come, say believers, when the pain and confusion of mortal life will give way to a transfigured community. Such a vision of the world seems indelible. Even politics, some reckon, has not escaped from the realm of the sacred: its dreams of the future still borrow their imagery from the prophets. In Heaven on Earth , T.J. Clark sets out to investigate the very different ways painting has given form to the dream of God’s kingdom come. He goes back to the late Middle Ages and Renaissance – to Giotto in Padua, Bruegel facing the horrors of religious war, Poussin painting the Sacraments, Veronese unfolding the human comedy. Was it to painting’s advantage, is Clark’s question, that in an age of enforced orthodoxy (threats of hellfire, burnings at the stake) artists could reflect on the powers and limitations of religion without putting their thoughts into words? At the heart of the book stands Bruegel’s ironic but tender picture of The Land of Cockaigne , and also Veronese’s inscrutable Allegory of Love . The story ends with Picasso’s Fall of Icarus , made for UNESCO in 1958, which already seems to signal – perhaps to prescribe – an age when all futures are dead.