The Renaissance and the Wider World

Book excerpt: Award-winning historian Joanne M. Ferraro's The Renaissance and the Wider World skillfully surveys the economic, political, social, and cultural history of Europe for the period between 1250 and 1600. The book examines how the Renaissance manifested itself through developments in the high culture of art, architecture, philosophy, science, technology, and education, as well as material culture in the form of worldly goods and consumption patterns. Ferraro expertly shows how Renaissance high culture began in 13th-century Italy, with important ancient and medieval legacies and cultural infusions from China, North Africa, and Islam and, from the 16th century, the Ottomans and the Americas; she also examines some of the ways in which this Renaissance then impacted the rest of Europe, the Americas, and the Ottoman Empire during the 15th and 16th centuries. Vital and innovative themes that permeate the text's discussions of science, art, architecture, philosophy, and technology are that: * Global encounters helped shape the material, intellectual and artistic cultures of the age * Both women and men contributed significantly to the advances made * The daily lives of ordinary men and women are fundamental to understanding this remarkable period Highly illustrated and with valuable pedagogical features, such as timelines and a glossary, The Renaissance and the Wider World is the essential guide to a European era of profound global importance.