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Jerry Brotton's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Jerry Brotton recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Jerry Brotton's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1

The Reformation

A History

At a time when men and women were prepared to kill—and be killed—for their faith, the Protestant Reformation tore the Western world apart. Acclaimed as the definitive account of these epochal events, Diarmaid MacCulloch's award-winning history brilliantly re-creates the religious battles of priests, monarchs, scholars, and politicians—from the zealous Martin Luther and his Ninety-Five Theses to the polemical John Calvin to the radical Igantius Loyola, from the tortured Thomas Cranmer to the ambitious Philip II.Drawing together the many strands of the Reformation and... more
Recommended by Jerry Brotton, and 1 others.

Jerry BrottonMacCulloch is fascinated by the key moment where many scholars would say that the Renaissance ends. (Source)

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2

The Printing Press as an Agent of Change

Originally published in two volumes in 1980, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change is now issued in a paperback edition containing both volumes. The work is a full-scale historical treatment of the advent of printing and its importance as an agent of change. Professor Eisenstein begins by examining the general implications of the shift from script to print, and goes on to examine its part in three of the major movements of early modern times - the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the rise of modern science. less
Recommended by Jerry Brotton, Todd Gitlin, and 2 others.

Jerry BrottonIt’s vast and it really makes you work hard (Source)

Todd GitlinElizabeth Eisenstein made a very audacious claim about the relation between printing and the Reformation, as well as the Renaissance. (Source)

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3

Worldly Goods

"Fascinating . . . Jardine's attention to the material side of things is an important explanatory complement to the many histories of the period that have dwelt on the sublime works of art . . . Real history is in the details, the small stories, of which WORLDLY GOODS is a treasure house."
Richard Bernstein, The New York Times
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Recommended by Jerry Brotton, and 1 others.

Jerry BrottonIt remains one of the most influential crossover books on the Renaissance by an academic writing for a broader audience. (Source)

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4
Renaissance Self-Fashioning is a study of sixteenth-century life and literature that spawned a new era of scholarly inquiry. Stephen Greenblatt examines the structure of selfhood as evidenced in major literary figures of the English Renaissance—More, Tyndale, Wyatt, Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakespeare—and finds that in the early modern period new questions surrounding the nature of identity heavily influenced the literature of the era. Now a classic text in literary studies, Renaissance Self-Fashioning continues to be of interest to students of the Renaissance, English literature,... more
Recommended by Jerry Brotton, and 1 others.

Jerry BrottonGreenblatt is interested in the great literature that comes out of the late 16th and early 17th century. (Source)

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5
Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy An introduction to 15th century Italian painting and the social history behind it, arguing that the two are interlinked and that the conditions of the time helped fashion distinctive elements in the painter's style.

Serving as both an introduction to fifteenth-century Italian painting and as a text on how to interpret social history from the style of pictures in a given historical period, this new edition to Baxandall's pre-eminent scholarly volume examines early Renaissance painting, and explains how the style of painting in any...
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Recommended by Jerry Brotton, and 1 others.

Jerry BrottonWhat Baxandall argues, in his book, is that a work of art is like an archaeological object. You need to excavate everything that surrounds it. (Source)

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