Author: Gene Brucker Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 0520241347 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 237
Book Description
"These essays on Renaissance Florence are a tonic to read, as we watch one of the great historians of the period take hold of major questions with never less than a keen intelligence and a masterly imagination."—Lauro Martines, author of April Blood: Florence and the Plot against the Medici (2003) and Strong Words: Writing and Social Strain in the Italian Renaissance (2001) "These thoughtful essays illuminate the precarious quality of life during the Italian Renaissance. They remind us of the social and personal struggles that gave birth to the period's impressive achievements."—William J. Connell, Professor of History and La Motta Chair in Italian Studies, Seton Hall University, editor of Society and Individual in Renaissance Florence
Author: Gene Brucker Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 0520930991 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 239
Book Description
In Living on the Edge in Leonardo's Florence, an internationally renowned master of the historian's craft provides a splendid overview of Italian history from the Black Death to the rise of the Medici in 1434 and beyond into the early modern period. Gene Brucker explores those pivotal years in Florence and ranges over northern Italy, with forays into the histories of Genoa, Milan, and Venice. The ten essays, three of which have never before been published, exhibit Brucker's graceful intelligence, his command of the archival sources, and his ability to make history accessible to anyone interested in this place and period. Whether he is writing about a case in the criminal archives, about a citation from Machiavelli, or the concept of modernity, the result is the same: Brucker brings the pulse of the period alive. Five of these essays explore themes in the premodern period and delve into Italy's political, social, economic, religious, and cultural development. Among these pieces is a lucid, synoptic view of the Italian Renaissance. The last five essays focus more narrowly on Florentine topics, including a fascinating look at the dangers and anxieties that threatened Florence in the fifteenth century during Leonardo's time and a mini-biography of Alessandra Strozzi, whose letters to her exiled sons contain the evidence for her eventful life.
Author: Gene Brucker Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 9780520244955 Category : Family & Relationships Languages : en Pages : 162
Book Description
"Set against the grindstone of social class, this story of Lusanna versus Giovanni, gleaned from the archives of Renaissance Florence, throws a floodlight on relations between the sexes. Gene Brucker's wonderful account has remarkable resonance."—Lauro Martines, author of April Blood “In the years since it first appeared, Gene Brucker's Giovanni and Lusanna has attracted a large and loyal readership. There is no better introduction to the complex realities of life (and love) in Florence during the Renaissance.”—William J. Connell, Professor of History and La Motta Chair in Italian Studies, Seton Hall University PRAISE FOR THE PREVIOUS EDITION: "At its core, this splendid study is about stubborn love and the forms of law, and the impossibility of each to accommodate the ultimate claims of the other."—New York Times Book Review
Author: Adam Michnik Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 9780520922495 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 388
Book Description
A hero to many, Polish writer Adam Michnik ranks among today's most fearless and persuasive public figures. His imprisonment by Poland's military regime in the 1980s did nothing to quench his outpouring of writings, many of which were published in English as Letters from Prison. Beginning where that volume ended, Letters from Freedom finds Michnik briefly in prison at the height of the "cold civil war" between authorities and citizens in Poland, then released. Through his continuing essays, articles, and interviews, the reader can follow all the momentous changes of the last decade in Poland and East-Central Europe. Some of the writings have appeared in English in various publications; most are translated here for the first time. Michnik is never detached. His belief that people can get what they want without hatred and violence has always translated into action, and his actions, particularly the activity of writing, have required his contemporaries to think seriously about what it is they want. His commitment to freedom is absolute, but neither wild-eyed nor humorless; with a characteristic combination of idealism and pragmatism, Michnik says, "In the end, politics is the art of foreseeing and implementing the possible." Michnik's blend of conviction and political acumen is perhaps most vividly revealed in the interviews transcribed in the book, whether he is the subject of the interview or is conducting a conversation with Czeslaw Milosz, Vacláv Havel, or Wojciech Jaruzelski. These face-to-face exchanges tell more about the forces at work in contemporary Eastern Europe than could any textbook. Sharing Michnik's intellectual journey through a tumultuous era, we touch on all the subjects important to him in this wide-ranging collection and find they have importance for everyone who values conscience and responsibility. In the words of Jonathan Schell, "Michnik is one of those who bring honor to the last two decades of the twentieth century."
Author: Catherine Fletcher Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 019061272X Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 353
Book Description
Family tree -- Glossary of names -- Timeline -- Map -- A note on money -- Prologue -- Book one: The bastard son -- Book two: The obedient nephew -- Book three: The prince alone -- Afterword: Alessandro's ethnicity.
Author: Samuel Kline COHN Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674029674 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 385
Book Description
Lust for Liberty challenges long-standing views of popular medieval revolts. Comparing rebellions in northern and southern Europe over two centuries, Samuel Cohn analyzes their causes and forms, their leadership, the role of women, and the suppression or success of these revolts. Popular revolts were remarkably common--not the last resort of desperate people. Leaders were largely workers, artisans, and peasants. Over 90 percent of the uprisings pitted ordinary people against the state and were fought over political rights--regarding citizenship, governmental offices, the barriers of ancient hierarchies--rather than rents, food prices, or working conditions. After the Black Death, the connection of the word liberty with revolts increased fivefold, and its meaning became more closely tied with notions of equality instead of privilege. The book offers a new interpretation of the Black Death and the increase of and change in popular revolt from the mid-1350s to the early fifteenth century. Instead of structural explanations based on economic, demographic, and political models, this book turns to the actors themselves--peasants, artisans, and bourgeois--finding that the plagues wrought a new urgency for social and political change and a new self- and class-confidence in the efficacy of collective action.
Author: Gene Brucker
Author: 
Author: Gene Brucker
Author: Gene Brucker
Author: Adam Michnik
Author: Robin Stevens Payes
Author: 
Author: Catherine Fletcher
Author: Samuel Kline COHN
Author: Gene Brucker