A bonanza of books from St John’s History tutors

First to be published, on 21 October, is Unlocking the Church: The lost secrets of Victorian sacred space, by Reverend Professor William Whyte (OUP, £18.99). Using a wide range of sources and deploying the latest research, it explores a forgotten revolution in social and architectural history and the history of the Church, and offers new ways of thinking about church buildings – as theological texts and as engines of emotion. Taking the story up to the present day, it poses the question of how we should treat these buildings now.

The second publication, released on 26 October, is Thomas Aquinas on Bodily Identity, by Dr Antonia Fitzpatrick (OUP, £60). This study fundamentally revises the generally accepted notion of Aquinas's philosophy of human nature, and restores the significance of the physical body, as opposed to the soul, for the individuality and identity of a person. It illuminates the philosophical debates central to late thirteenth and early fourteenth-century thought, and highlights their ongoing interest to modern thinkers. Furthermore, it brings central ideas in medieval thought into contact with theologians' polemic with heresy, and the institutional histories of the medieval university and religious orders.

Finally, 30 November sees the publication of Legalism: Property and Ownership, edited by Dr Georgy Kantor and Professor Hannah Skoda of St John’s, and Dr Tom Lambert of Sidney Sussex College Cambridge (OUP, £65). This study brings together anthropologists and historians to examine how property and ownership operate and have been understood across broad historical and geographical contexts. It offers a truly cross-cultural perspective, and makes specialist case studies visible and accessible to non-specialists.

Professor William Whyte
Dr Antonia Fitzpatrick
Professor Hannah Skoda
Dr Georgy Kantor