Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

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Anxiety
(1,040 words)

Fundamental publications on the history of mentality have led to a widespread belief that the early modern period was notably an age of anxiety and uncertainty. Terms like witchcraft mania and witchcraft hysteria underline the view that life just before the period of the Enlightenment was lived in an atmosphere of irrational fear. The Reformation itself and the emergence of competing Confessionalization are interpreted in the literature as processes that evoked not just a general feeling of insecurity but every imaginable fear and anxiety—naturally …

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Naphy, William, “Anxiety”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 19 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_SIM_016860>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20160321



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