Johann Heinrich Alsted, professor of philosophy and theology at the Calvinist academy of Heborn, was a man of many parts. A deputy to the famous Synod of Dort and greatest encyclopaedist of his age, he was also a pioneer of Calvinist millenarianism and a devoted student of astrology, alchemy, Lullism, and the works of Giordano Bruno. From the mainstream Reformed tradition, Alsted and his circle inherited the zeal for further reformation of church, state, and society; but with this they blended hermetic dreams of a general reformation and the restoration of primordial perfection to the fallen human nature through Lullist and alchemical panaceas. However paradoxical from a strictly Calvinist standpoint, this loose synthesis helped prepare the programme of Alsted's greatest student, Jan Amos Cominius, and the following generation of central European universal reformers. Alsted's intellectual biography opens up unexpected perspectives on the reforming movements of the seventeenth century, and provides an invaluable introduction to many of the central ideas, individuals and institutions of this neglected era of central European intellectual history.

Johann Heinrich Alsted, professor of philosophy and theology at the Calvinist academy of Herborn, was a man of many facets. A deputy to the famous Synod of Dort and the greatest encyclopaedist of his age, he was also a pioneer of Calvinist millenarianism and a devoted student of astrology, alchemy, Lullism, and the works of Giordano Bruno. This intellectual biography opens up unexpected perspectives on the central European Reformed tradition as a whole and provides an invaluable introduction to many of the central ideas, individuals, and institutions in this neglected area of intellectual history.

With enormous erudition and the perserverance of a detective, Hotson dissects the various intellectual strands that make up the fabric of Alsted's oeuvre, identifying authors and tracing the often curious ways in which ideas found entrance into Alsted's work ... This brief review cannot possibly do justice to the subtlety and comprehensiveness of Hotson's study. Alsted was a writer of prodigious productivity and learning. So is his modern biographer.