Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance PDF

Lisa Anne Bronowski (Jardine) war eine britische Historikerin der frühen Neuzeit. Von 1990 bis 2011 war sie Centenary Professor of Renaissance Studies und Direktorin des Centre for Editing Lives and Letters an der Queen Mary, University of London. Seit 2008 war sie Vorsitzende der Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA). Sie war Mitglied des Rates der Royal Institution, trat jedoch im September 2009 von diesem Posten zurück. Am 1. September 2012 zog sie mit ihrem Forschungszentrum und seinen Mitarbeitern um an das University College London (UCL) als erster Direktor seines Zentrums für interdisziplinäre Forschung in den Geisteswissenschaften.

Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance pdf von Lisa Jardine

In this provocative and wholly absorbing work, Lisa Jardine offers a radical interpretation of the Renaissance, arguing that the creation of culture during that time was inextricably tied to the creation of wealth — that the expansion of commerce spurred the expansion of thought. As Jardine boldly states, "The seeds of our own exuberant multiculturalism and bravura consumerism were planted in the European Renaissance." While Europe's royalty and merchants competed with each other to acquire works of art, vicious commercial battles were being fought over who should control the centers for trade around the globe. Jardine encompasses Renaissance culture from its western borders in Christendom to its eastern reaches in the Islamic Ottoman Empire, bringing this opulent epoch to life in all its material splendor and competitive acquisitiveness. "A savvy, street-smart history of the Renaissance."—Dan Cryer, Newsday "Jardine's lively book is specific and down-to-earth. A particularly fascinating section recalls how books suddenly ceased to be principally collector's items or aids to scholars and became the sixteenth century's Internet, dispensing fact and fancy to high and low.