Renaissance History

From the inimitable bestselling author Thomas Cahill, another popular history - this one focusing on how the innovations of the Renaissance and the Reformation changed the Western world. A truly revolutionary audiobook. In Volume VI of his acclaimed Hinges of History series, Thomas Cahill guides us through the thrilling period of the Renaissance and the Reformation (the late fourteenth to the early seventeenth century), so full of innovation and cultural change that the Western world would not experience its like again until the twentieth century.

Learn about the Renaissance period with iMindsJNR audio learning series for younger minds. The word "Renaissance" means "rebirth" in French. It was first used by French historian Jules Michelet in 1858 to refer to a "movement" that took place between about the 13th and 16th centuries . This movement describes the transition from medieval to modern Europe.

For as long as language and communication have existed, humans have invented ways to mask their messages from prying eyes. One could be forgiven for assuming there are no ciphers left unsolved. On the contrary, a diverse array of both ancient and modern cryptographic challenges, which have stumped even the most seasoned code crackers of today, exist, and may exist for generations to come. Among the most famous of these memorandums is a 600-year-old document that continues to mystify: the Voynich Manuscript.

In four decades, bookended by the Pope’s visits to Ireland in September 1979 and August 2018, Ireland has become one of the wealthiest and most progressive nations in the world. Characteristically brilliant and timely, Renaissance Nation is a thrilling account of Ireland’s vertiginous rise and a timely exploration of its conflicted present, where stark decisions await the next generation of would-be revolutionaries.

The Spoils of Time is a concise history of the world in nine chapters, tracing the prehistoric beginnings of early man’s halting steps towards civilization and ending sometime around 1500. The scope is vast, with Wedgwood’s scholarship spanning all the continents. As the author states, her purpose was to create a continuous narrative of human history for her own pleasure and to find out for herself what, if any, interlacing relations might hold us together.

Europe is an astonishingly successful place. In this dazzling new history, best-selling author Simon Jenkins grippingly tells the story of its evolution from warring peoples to peace, wealth and freedom - a story that twists and turns from Greece and Rome, through the Dark Ages, the Reformation and the French Revolution, to the Second World War and up to the present day. Jenkins takes in leaders from Julius Caesar and Joan of Arc to Wellington and Angela Merkel as well as cultural figures from Aristotle to Shakespeare and Picasso.

Every age and social strata has its bad eggs, rule-breakers, and nose-thumbers. As acclaimed popular historian and author of How to Be a Victorian Ruth Goodman reveals in her madcap chronicle, Elizabethan England was particularly rank with troublemakers, from snooty needlers who took aim with a cutting "thee" to lowbrow drunkards with revolting table manners. Goodman draws on advice manuals, court cases, and sermons to offer this colorfully crude portrait of offenses most foul.

Renowned as a period of cultural rebirth and artistic innovation, the Renaissance is cloaked in a unique aura of beauty and brilliance. Its very name conjures up awe-inspiring images of an age of lofty ideals in which life imitated the fantastic artworks for which it has become famous. But behind the vast explosion of new art and culture lurked a seamy, vicious world of power politics, perversity, and corruption that has more in common with the present day than anyone dares to admit.

In the fifteenth century, even before the city states of the Apennine Peninsula began to coalesce into what would become, several centuries later, a nation, "Italy" exerted enormous influence over all of Europe and throughout the Mediterranean. Viewing the Italy (the many Italies?) of that time through the lens of today allows us to gather a fragmented, multi-faceted, and seemingly contradictory history into a single unifying narrative that speaks to our current reality as much as it does to a specific historical period. This is what the French historian Fernand Braudel achieves here.

Perhaps no country has had such a lasting impact on Western culture as Italy. Whether it’s the frescoes of the Renaissance, the politics of ancient Rome, or the formation of the Catholic Church, Italy holds a central place on the world’s stage. This audiobook gives a quick but detailed overview of Italy’s grand, sweeping history, from ancient city-state to modern cultural mecca. Whether you’re a student of Italian history looking for a refresher or a brand-new learner looking for an introduction, this audiobook is a concise, easy-to-follow overview.

A concise, star-studded retelling of Italy's past, from Caesar and Augustus to da Vinci and Michelangelo, tracing the story of a country with prodigious global influence—from a foremost author of historic Italy.

A History of the Middle Ages is the amazing story of European man in transition. It is a dramatic chronicle of 1,000 years of political, social, and economic transformation beginning with the dissolution of the classical Mediterranean civilization and ending with the first flowering of the Renaissance. It is also the story of two new religions, Christianity and Islam, both of which were destined to dominate the mind of every person in those new civilizations arising in their wake.

Mary Boleyn, ‘the infamous other Boleyn girl’, began her court career as the mistress of the king of France. François I of France would later call her ‘The Great Prostitute’ and the slur stuck. Mary would emerge the sole survivor of a family torn apart by lust and ambition, and it is in Mary and her progeny that the Boleyn legacy rests.

Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) was a man of many talents - a sculptor, painter, architect, writer, and scholar - but he is best known for Lives of the Artists, which singlehandedly established the canon of Italian Renaissance art. Before Vasari's extraordinary book, art was considered a technical skill, and artists were mere decorators and craftsmen. It was through Vasari's visionary writings that Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo came to be regarded as great masters of life as well as art, their creative genius celebrated as a divine gift.

A controversial examination of the influence and presence of the Norse god Odin in contemporary history and culture.

In the first part of this audiobook, you will discover: Woolly mammoths were used for the craziest things; brrr! Ice Ages last how long?; how man’s best friends are related to wolves; and more....

Rome, the Eternal City. Today visitors can stand on bridges that Julius Caesar and Cicero crossed; walk around temples in the footsteps of emperors; visit churches from the earliest days of Christianity. This is all the more remarkable considering what the city has endured. It has been ravaged by fires, floods, earthquakes, and - most of all - by roving armies. Matthew Kneale uses seven of these crisis moments to create a powerful and captivating account of Rome’s extraordinary history. He paints portraits of the city before each assault, describing how Romans, both rich and poor, lived their everyday lives.

In true stories as vivid as the colors in which they painted, Jim Weiss brings to life the astounding Leonardo da Vinci; the volcanic genius Michelangelo; Brunelleschi, who changed the way we see the world; the lighthearted sculptor, Donatello; and other captivating characters. You will watch fierce Pope Julius II drive out invaders while supervising the painting of the Sistine Chapel, and dine in the palace of Lorenzo de Medici, swordsman, statesman and patron of the arts, as he faces treachery and turns war to peace.

From the death of Richard III on Bosworth Field in 1485 to the execution of Charles I, after the Civil Wars of 1642-48, England was transformed by two Dynasties. Firstly the Tudors, who won the crown on the battlefield and changed both the nature of kingship but also the nation itself. England became a Protestant nation and began to establishment itself as a trading power; facing down impossible odds it defeated its enemies on land and sea.

The award-winning Beneath the American Renaissance is a classic work on American literature. It immeasurably broadens our knowledge of our most important literary period, as first identified by F.O. Matthiessen’s American Renaissance. With its combination of sharp critical insight, engaging observation, and narrative drive, it represents the kind of masterful cultural history for which David Reynolds is known. Here the major works of Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, and others receive striking, original readings set against the rich backdrop of contemporary popular writing.