Inventing the Renaissance
Inventing the Renaissance dismantles the myth of the Renaissance golden age, revealing where that myth comes from, and the desperate and war-torn age hidden underneath.
In our ongoing pandemic, many have looked at old theories that the Black Death caused wages to rise leading to the Renaissance golden age, and asked if this means COVID will cause an economic boom. Rather than giving the short answer, “that research is out of date,” Inventing the Renaissance looks at why historical errors like that happen, how they tend to persist, and where the idea of the Renaissance as a golden age came from. It also dives deep into the era’s events and world view, showing how Renaissance thinkers enabled world-changing ideas including utilitarian ethics, egalitarianism, universal education, modern liberal arts education, the scientific method, and the modern concept of progress, as well as bad things like nationalism and European imperialism.
