Evening's Empire: A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe

New Studies in European History

by Craig Koslofsky

What does it mean to write a history of the night? Evening's Empire is a fascinating study of the myriad ways in which early modern people understood, experienced, and transformed the night. Using diaries, letters, and legal records together with representations of the night in early modern religion, literature and art, Craig Koslofsky opens up an entirely new perspective on early modern Europe. He shows how princes, courtiers, burghers and common people 'nocturnalized' political expression, the public sphere and the use of daily time. Fear of the night was now mingled with improved opportunities for labour and leisure: the modern night was beginning to assume its characteristic shape. Evening's Empire takes the evocative history of the night into early modern politics, culture and society, revealing its importance to key themes from witchcraft, piety, and gender to colonization, race, and the Enlightenment.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Cultural, European History

449 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 30, 2011

Reviews

[Beth Lewis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had read a review of Evening's Empire in the Atlantic. I was expecting a well written piece of nonfiction that would delight and enlighten me as to the colonization of the night... I didn't get it. Evenings Empire is scholarly but it is tediously written. The subject matter is interesting, but the writing is so poor, I found myself rereading paragraphs 3 times trying to figure out what the author was trying to say. It reads more like a doctoral thesis than a book. It's footnotes and bibliography alone take up 140 pages. I slogged my way through it and learned a few things, but I found it much less interesting than it deserved to be, given the subject matter.

[Kjersti Egerdahl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interesting, although academic, when it discusses how people expanded their daily lives into the hours of darkness. First, darkness became more frequently used for religious contemplation and meetings during the uncertainty of the Reformation, as people had to keep their religious affiliations secret. The night also became understood as a time for witchcraft as witches became more criminalized by the state - where before they had practiced folk magic anytime. Later, street lighting in cities made the streets safe for the bourgeoisie to stay up late at the new coffeehouses, and thus modern civic life and political arguments spread to the middle class. Kings and courtiers also used the night for theatrical effect, to display their absolute power. Louis XIV, The Sun King, was the "brightest" example. This part seemed a little disconnected from the previous sections, and a little more of a stretch since it verged into theater history. This lowers the overall rating to 3 stars. But the sections on religion and city life were really interesting, and show where a lot of our assumptions about "night life" come from. Also, I'm now reading "Witchcraze," a book about the wholesale slaughter of witches (85% women), and this book provides an interesting backstory on the shift away from tolerance toward witch hunting.

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting in its macro descriptions of the ways in which early-modern Europeans shifted some activities into the night. Suffers from some conceptual flaws, though. For one, it is not really a history of the night, but about how certain activities came to take place at night. More substantively, it is not particularly clear how the chicken-and-egg question of innovation should be answered - did technology change culture? or did cultural shift lead to demands for new tech (e.g., streetlights). Despite the title, Koslofsky is careful to hedge almost all his claims ... thereby undermining the grander claims of the title and introduction. If the countryside did not 'colonize' the night, then was the period truly revolutionary? And exactly how different were early modern cities from medieval ones? (certainly street lights made them different, but one wonders whether - if the evidence were there - one would find plenty of evidence of nocturnal activity from the 13th-15th centuries as well). So, although individual chapters were interesting and well-done, the whole is distinctly less than the sum of its parts. [Side note: for those interested in the nascent history of sleep, this is *not* the book. Check out A. Roger Ekirch's "At Day's Close: Night in Times Past" for both the story of segmented sleep and for a more traditional social history of night-time]

[Neil Lovell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This books is a unique and fascinating approach to Early Modern Europe. The scope and approach is well done and interesting. His discussion of royalty and their image, as well as religion and theater make sense. He is focused and keeps you thinking about his created term, "nocturnalization."
However, this book is not necessarily approachable. He uses an esoteric and grandiloquent vocabulary, and includes his voice in the writing. If academic, it works better. For the general public, they may struggle. He also leaves plenty left wanting, such as a better discussion on drunks, ghosts, witches, and prostitution. More details could be added not just to make this book more appealing, but also to give the audience a better understanding of Early Modern Europe and illuminated connections to his concern with the night.

[Lia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative and interesting. Mostly understandable to someone not in the field, although there were a few times I wished a term was defined or a line of French was translated.

[Mtejeda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating look into night as experienced by "early modern" Western societies.

[Olivia]

Sept 23 2011 edition

[Nina Morel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting how new technologies (street lamps) were spoken of in exactly the same terms as social media is today.

[KarnagesMistress]

2016 WCPLRC: Author From Your Home Sate OR Country (If You Are Not From The US); A Book With An Alliterative Title; A Book About A Different Culture