Revolution Or Renaissance

In Revolution or Renaissance, D. Paul Schafer subjects two of the most powerful forces in the world – economics and culture – to a detailed and historically sensitive analysis. He argues that the economic age has produced a great deal of wealth and unleashed tremendous productive power; however, it is not capable of coming to grips with the problems threatening human and non-human life on this planet. After tracing the evolution of the economic age from the publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations in 1776 to the present, he turns his attention to culture, examining it both as a concept and as a reality. What emerges is a portrait of the world system of the future where culture is the central focus of development. According to Schafer, making the transition from an economic age to a cultural age is imperative if global harmony, environmental sustainability, economic viability, and human well-being are to be achieved.

A collection of fifteen essays on some of the problems associated with the Scientific Revolution.

"In the 20th and 21st century revolutions have become more urban, often less violent, but also more frequent and more transformative of the international order. Whether it is the revolutions against Communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR; the "color revolutions" across Asia, Europe and North Africa; or the religious revolutions in Iran, Afghanistan, and Syria; today's revolutions are quite different from those of the past. Modern theories of revolution have therefore replaced the older class-based theories with more varied, dynamic, and contingent models of social and political change. This new edition updates the history of revolutions, from Classical Greece and Rome to the Revolution of Dignity in the Ukraine, with attention to the changing types and outcomes of revolutionary struggles. It also presents the latest advances in the theory of revolutions, including the issues of revolutionary waves, revolutionary leadership, international influences, and the likelihood of revolutions to come. This volume provides a brief but comprehensive introduction to the nature of revolutions and their role in global history"--

Originally published in 1967, this book discusses some key writers of the Renaissance: Machiavelli, Castiglione, Bacon and Hobbes and compares their work by relating it that of others in England and elsewhere. Chapters on Bacon contain references to Galileo and Descartes; the chapter on Castiglione also touches on Montaigne. The book also contrasts various currents of thought in the Renaissance with their medieval counterparts or forerunners. The volume isolates the great themes, or revolutionary shifts in as they manifest themselves in the work of important writers and thinkers.

Between 1917 and 1921, Jewish intellectuals and writers across the Russian empire pursued a “Jewish renaissance.” Here is a revisionist argument about the nature of cultural nationalism, the relationship between nationalism and socialism, and culture itself—the pivot point for the encounter between Jews and European modernity over the past century.

Political issues and events have always acted as a catalyst on thought and art. In this pioneering study, Larry J. Reynolds argues that the European revolutions of 1848-49 quickened the American literary imagination and shaped the characters, plots, and themes of the American renaissance. He traces the impact of the revolutions on Emerson, Fuller, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, and Thoreau, showing that the upheavals abroad both inspired and disturbed. Extraordinarily well informed and creative treatment of the influences of the 1848-49 European revolutions on writers of the American Renaissance...The book is especially effective in providing a historical context for reading major writings. It demonstrates influences at work at a number of levels and presents historical narrative and subtle readings of literary texts with equal clarity. Highly recommended.- Choice