Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Not the most stunning or innovative of Professor Grafton's works, makes a sweeping review from the expectations held by the world of humanists received from Greek, Latin, and Arabic forerunners to the explosion and expansion of these expectations due to America's discovery. Grafton is a smooth and engaging writer, who can bind the vast realms of his study into fine sentences and clear argumentation.
The text consists of five chapters, intermittent miniature biographies of more interesting or less frequently known players, and luxurious black and white reproductions of images and manuscripts of the age. The text runs its course and neither references the small biographies nor acknowledges the handsome illustrations. It is very possible that one will skip over these images as accessory to follow the sweep of the author's narrative, only to revisit them later. Sweeps and anecdotes describe the nature of the investigation rather than patient analysis of sites and sights. This book seems to share only the prettiest berries plucked from Grafton's years as a tender of the tree.
This book more than adequately accounts for the changes in European thought on account of the discovery not just of new lands, but of new worlds, new diseases, drugs, and, as important, the discovery of the limitations of many ancient texts. Again, Grafton is beguiling, informative and masterful at his craft. will be equally welcome reading for those who enjoy the period and those who wish to find a compelling way to enter it.
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Describing an era of exploration during the Renaissance that went far beyond geographic bounds, this book shows how the evidence of the New World shook the foundations of the old, upsetting the authority of the ancient texts that had guided Europeans so far afield. What Grafton recounts is a war of ideas fought by mariners, scientists, publishers, and rulers over a period of 150 years. In colorful vignettes, published debates, and copious illustrations, we see these men and their contemporaries trying to make sense of their discoveries as they sometimes confirm, sometimes contest, and finally displace traditional notions of the world beyond Europe.
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