Renaissance Books

I saw this book twenty years ago and always wanted one. I was so happy I could find it and get a glimpse of history without having to read so many books.

This rather large book is great for those taking the Advanced placement European history exam. It is clear and concise. Its content is rather wordy but it includes many topics in each subject. For example, in the Chapter of the Rennaissance, it shows what the men were doing and the women's role in that time period. It also adds details about major battles, important writers and artist of that time period. The Ap European Exam includes a lot of this imformation that will surely be found in this book. I liked the book because of its complete source of information pertaining to the AP european exam. If you want a great score on the exam this book is for you. The study guide made for this book is also a great outline and preview to each chapter and is very helpful in taking the test.

This meticulously-researched treasury fully deserves all the attention it has received from critics and admirers alike.

This is a very helpful guide to history for these years. Along with Berg's other books, this one lists great references on these topics. A wonderful approach to history using literature and classics. Includes an outline, questions,etc.

This is an outstanding book by the world's leading expert on Holbein. The plates are superb, the color reproductions remarkably faithful.

For those like myself who were not able to see the exhibit in London, this catalogue is a wonderful survey of this supreme student of the human mind. Every single portrait is a profound analysis of the sitter's personality. These paintings are 500 years old, but they could have been painted yesterday. The text gives new insight on Holbein's world and even on the meaning of some paintings (e.g. the Lady with a Squirrel).

The idea of homosexuality occuring before there was a term for it isn't necessarily a new idea. It has been an often ignored facet of literature and history because scholars tend to want to see their heroes remain, as they might see it, unsullied. However, considering the works of the greats such as Marlowe and Shakespeare, it is difficult to ignore their homosexual leanings. Smith does more than just uncloset poets and dramatists of the Renaissance, though. He rebuilds the cultural, social, and political climate and breaks the world of Renaissance homosexuality down into 6 distinct myths or stories that embody the various forms that homosexuality took and the ideas associated with each form. The book dropped jaws when first published and remains more than a viable source for Renaissance study and Queer Theory; it is the best book of its kind to date.

This superb book combines literary criticism of some fascinating texts-both rare ones and classics-with the social history of the English Revolution. It has a breathtaking sweep from Elizabethan to late Restoration times, but the author manages to ascribe a remarkable degree of unity to an era that historians normally chop into several periods. Burks argues that modern political discourse dates not from the end of the seventeenth century but from at least the middle of the sixteenth century. A major recurring theme of that discourse was sexual violation. Defenders of the prerogative employed it to warn of the consequences if crown authority collapsed: men's possessions, including their women and children, would be ravaged. John Foxe and other martyrologists used it to heighten their readers' horror at royal tyranny, and seventeenth-century writers from Margaret Cavendish to Aphra Behn evoked vulnerable womanhood to support political positions on the left or the right. Written in a graceful, jargon-free style, illustrated with hair-raising execution scenes from Foxe, and structured with nice bridges from one literary gem to the next, the book shows how the English were swayed in the general direction of their eighteenth-century constitution by the spectacle of violation.

This book is a classic in terms of philosophy and one that is certainly motivating. If only we could all apply the advice contained within it to our lives. This Penguin Great Books series edition makes it even better by presenting it in a artistic, compact form. The text is clear and well-edited and truly a great addition to one's personal library.

I thoroughly enjoyed book. Every Southerner can recognize himself or friends in the book, and laugh that we have been pictured so perfectly. A great gift book!