Historians, art historians, and other scholars, all but two from the US, investigates what constitutes knowledge in the context of early modern Germany; and how knowledge was gathered, assembled, organized, deployed, and interpreted. The ten selected essays explore such aspects as mad mares and willful women in early modern hippological texts, the management of knowledge at the electoral court of Saxony in Dresden, reading and writing in early modern popular literature, medicine and pastoral care for the dying in Protestant Germany, blasphemy in early modern Switzerland, bankruptcy and business morality in 18th-century Germany, and public church penance in Saxony. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)