Contesting The Renaissance

In this book, William Caferro asks if the Renaissance was really a period of progress, reason, the emergence of the individual, and the beginning of modernity. An influential investigation into the nature of the European Renaissance Summarizes scholarly debates about the nature of the Renaissance Engages with specific controversies concerning gender identity, economics, the emergence of the modern state, and reason and faith Takes a balanced approach to the many different problems and perspectives that characterize Renaissance studies

Drawing together the latest research in the field, The Routledge History of the Renaissance treats the Renaissance not as a static concept, but as one of ongoing change within an international framework. It takes as its unifying theme the idea of exchange and interchange through the movement of goods, ideas, disease and people, across social, religious, political and physical boundaries. Covering a broad range of temporal periods and geographic regions, the chapters discuss topics such as the material cultures of Renaissance societies; the increased popularity of shopping as a pastime in fourteenth-century Italy; military entrepreneurs and their networks across Europe; the emergence and development of the Ottoman empire from the early fourteenth to the late sixteenth century; and women and humanism in Renaissance Europe. The volume is interdisciplinary in nature, combining historical methodology with techniques from the fields of anthropology, sociology, psychology and literary criticism. It allows for juxtapositions of approaches that are usually segregated into traditional subfields, such as intellectual, political, gender, military and economic history. Capturing dynamic new approaches to the study of this fascinating period and illustrated throughout with images, figures and tables, this comprehensive volume is a valuable resource for all students and scholars of the Renaissance.

Winner, 2008 Otto Gründler Book Prize, The Medieval Institute Winner, 2008 Otto Gründler Book Prize, The Medieval Institute Notorious for his cleverness and daring, John Hawkwood was the most feared mercenary in early Renaissance Italy. Born in England, Hawkwood began his career in France during the Hundred Years' War and crossed into Italy with the famed White Company in 1361. From that time until his death in 1394, Hawkwood fought throughout the peninsula as a captain of armies in times of war and as a commander of marauding bands during times of peace. He achieved international fame, and city-states constantly tried to outbid each other for his services, for which he received money, land, and, in the case of Florence, citizenship—a most unusual honor for an Englishman. When Hawkwood died, the Florentines buried him with great ceremony in their cathedral, an honor denied their greatest poet, Dante. William Caferro's ambitious account of Hawkwood is both a biography and a study of warfare and statecraft. Caferro has mined more than twenty archives in Britain and Italy, creating an authoritative portrait of Hawkwood as an extraordinary military leader, if not always an admirable human being.

This book offers an introductory review to a wide range of thinking, formulated over the last half-millennium in the Western world, about the meaning of human existence. It will touch on a variety of issues of contemporary significance, such as the origin and uniqueness of the human species, freedom and determinism, the nature of good and evil, and the possibilities and limits of the sciences. The book will supply a number of explanatory comments, from a Christian perspective, on the various views uncovered. Insofar as human beings are fascinated by exploring the reality of their own selves, in relation to history, culture, the natural environment, and a variety of worldviews, this book will afford readers plenty of material to stimulate them in their own exploration.

"Denzin and Giardina have brought together the works of leading cultural critics who have given cultural studies a global framework that meets our need to examine the governing strategies of the military, the economy, the media, and educational elites...This is a must-read for those who want cultural studies to really matter in the present moment." Patricia Ticineto Clough Contesting Empire, Globalizing Dissent: Cultural Studies after 9/11 is a landmark text. Leading scholars from cultural studies, education, gender studies, and sociology reposition critical cultural studies research around the goals of moral clarity and political intervention. Chapters range in focus from neoliberalism and democracy to America's war on kids and the cultural politics of national identity.

Contesting the Reformation provides a comprehensive survey of the most influential works in the field of Reformation studies from a comparative, cross-national, interdisciplinary perspective. Represents the only English-language single-authored synthetic study of Reformation historiography Addresses both the English and the Continental debates on Reformation history Provides a thematic approach which takes in the main trends in modern Reformation history Draws on the most recent publications relating to Reformation studies Considers the social, political, cultural, and intellectual implications of the Reformation and the associated literature

This volume brings together some of the most exciting renaissance scholars to suggest new ways of thinking about the period and to set a new series of agendas for Renaissance scholarship. Overturns the idea that it was a period of European cultural triumph and highlights the negative as well as the positive. Looks at the Renaissance from a world, as opposed to just European, perspective. Views the Renaissance from perspectives other than just the cultural elite. Gender, sex, violence, and cultural history are integrated into the analysis.

"The Renaissance is usually portrayed as a period dominated by the extraordinary achievements of great men: rulers, philosophers, poets, painters, architects and scientists. Leading scholar Margaret King recasts the Renaissance as a more complex cultural movement rooted in a unique urban society that was itself the product of many factors and interactions: commerce, papal and imperial ambitions, artistic patronage, scientific discovery, aristocratic and popular violence, legal precedents, peasant migrations, famine, plague, invasion and other social factors. Together with literary and artistic achievements, therefore, today's Renaissance history includes the study of power, wealth, gender, class, honour, shame, ritual and other categories of historical investigation opened up in recent years. Tracing the diffusion of the Renaissance from Italy to the rest of Europe, Professor King marries the best work of the last generation of scholars with the findings of the most recent research, including her own. Ultimately, she points to the multiple ways in which this seminal epoch influenced the later development of Western culture and society."--Jacket.