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Taking medical knowledge as her case study, Marcus provides an illuminating account of the complexities entailed in Counter-Reformation censorship of "useful" books. Marcus memorably describes expurgation as "the dark side of commonplacing" (p. 94); its practitioners reversed the humanist practice of noting edifying passages to achieve new, censorious ends. Marcus explores a largely futile attempt to enlist a committee of (predominantly lay) experts to compile lists of expurgations at the University of Padua, a celebrated centre of early modern medical knowledge. [Extracted from the article]

Instead, Hume advocated a form of civil religion modelled along Presbyterian lines, in which the clergy would be provided for by the civil authorities. As Walsh explains in his introduction, his aim is to sketch some iterations of English civil religion, rather than produce a comprehensive catalogue. Walsh identifies four "varieties" of civil religion, an echo of J. G. A. Pocock's famous essay on the "varieties of Whiggism". [Extracted from the article]