Civilization Renaissance

In this masterful work, listeners will encounter: the poets Petrarch and Boccaccio, the fathers of the Renaissance; the paintings, sculptures, and architecture of Milan, Florence, and Venice; the life and accomplishments of Leonardo DaVinci; the Catholic church and the popes of Avignon and Rome; the politicians and philosophers of Italy, including the Borgia family, Julius II, and Machiavelli; the Italian Wars, the conflicts with France, and the country's decline.

In this landmark study of Italy from the 14th through the early 16th centuries, Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt chronicles the rise of Florence and Venice as powerful city-states, the breakup of the medieval worldview that came with the rediscovery of Greek and Roman culture, and the new emphasis on the role of the individual. All these, Burckhardt explains, went hand in hand with the explorations of science and the more naturalistic depiction of the world in art and literature.

This book presents the history of Western Civilization from the end of the Renaissance to Modern and the so-called Post-Modern Times. Topics include the limiting of monarchies, the development of western science, revolutions (political and other), nationalism, imperialism, totalitarianism and other isms, World Wars, the Cold War, Post-Modernism, and the present multi-centric world. Integrated within these topics are selections and discussions of artistic/cultural expressions that represent these various times.

“A journey as epic, and varying, as the Silk Road itself...[The Fabric of Civilization is] like a swatch of a Florentine Renaissance brocade: carefully woven, the technique precise, the colors a mix of shade and shine and an accurate representation of the whole cloth” (The New York Times)...

Beginning in the heady days just after the First Crusade, this volume - the third in the series that began with The History of the Ancient World and The History of the Medieval World - chronicles the contradictions of a world in transition. Impressively researched and brilliantly told, The History of the Renaissance World offers not just the names, dates, and facts but the memorable characters who illuminate the years between 1100 and 1453 - years that marked a sea change in mankind's perception of the world.

Unlock the Secrets of the Island Nation That Shaped the Modern World From the shadowy origins of its first inhabitants to its transformation into a dazzling technological superpower, Japan’s history is a saga of warriors, emperors, artistic genius, and global power plays that changed the world forever. This book is your engaging, fast-paced journey through the legendary moments that built the spirit of Japan. Dive deep into the compelling questions that define Japan’s unique identity: Who were the mysterious Jōmon people, and what do their 10,000-year-old artifacts reveal? Was the ...

Between the birth of Dante in 1265 and the death of Galileo in 1642, something happened that transformed the entire culture of Western civilization. Painting, sculpture, and architecture would all visibly change in such a striking fashion that there could be no going back on what had taken place. Likewise, the thought and self-conception of humanity would take on a completely new aspect. Sciences would be born - or emerge in an entirely new guise.

Studies in Islamic Civilization was published in complete form in 2010 and reprinted in 2011. It draws upon the works of Western scholars to make the case that without the tremendous contribution of the Muslim world there would have been no Renaissance in Europe. For almost a thousand years Islam was arguably one of the leading civilizations of the world spanning a geographic area greater than any other.

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.

The brilliance of the Renaissance laid the foundation of the modern world. Textbooks tell us that it came about as a result of a rediscovery of the ideas and ideals of classical Greece and Rome. But now bestselling historian Gavin Menzies makes the startling argument that in the year 1434...

Betrayed by the ruling families of Italy, Ezio Auditore embarks upon an epic quest for vengeance. To eradicate corruption and restore his family's honor, he will learn the art of the Assassins. Along the way, Ezio will call upon the wisdom of such great minds as Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolò Machiavelli, knowing that survival is bound to the skills by which he must live.To his allies, he will become a force for change in his fight for freedom and justice.

If ever a catharsis in Western European Civilization occurred, it had to have been the period we refer to as the Renaissance. After a thousand years of theocracy, manorialism, feudalism and narrow economic development, Europe was ripe for change. She got it with a vengeance.

The Renaissance did not begin in Florence. Long before Leonardo painted, before Copernicus moved the Earth, before European universities became centers of philosophy and science, another civilization had already gathered the knowledge of the ancient world and set it on fire again. In Baghdad, translators rendered Greek philosophy, medicine, mathematics, and astronomy into Arabic. In Persia and Central Asia, scholars such as al-Khwarizmi, Avicenna, al-Razi, al-Biruni, and al-Tusi transformed inherited knowledge into new systems of calculation, healing, measurement, and cosmic inquiry. In ...

Before Europe had a medical Renaissance, it had Avicenna. For centuries, European medicine did not begin with a microscope, a laboratory, or a modern hospital. It began with books. And among the most important of those books was the Canon of Medicine, written by the Persian physician-philosopher Ibn Sina — known to the Latin West as Avicenna. Long before Renaissance anatomists challenged ancient authority, long before modern science transformed the body into a world of cells, microbes, circulation, chemistry, and disease mechanisms, Avicenna gave medicine something it desperately needed: ...

The Floating Fortress: The 1,500-Year Engineering Secret of Venice is a captivating exploration of how one of the world's most beautiful cities was born from a desperate act of survival. The narrative begins in 452 AD, following weary refugees as they fled the invading armies of Attila the Hun to seek sanctuary in the treacherous, muddy marshes of the Venetian lagoon. This ancient engineering history book reveals the hidden structural marvels that allowed a global superpower to rise directly out of the water. Through detailed accounts of the "submerged forest," readers will discover the ...

War, crisis, and rivalry forged modern Europe. From the collapse of Rome to the Black Death, from the Hundred Years’ War to the Thirty Years’ War, this sweeping history shows how conflict and catastrophe—rather than peace—drove innovation, state formation, and the rise of competing powers across the continent. The Making of Modern Europe: War, Crisis, and the Rise of Powers traces how fragmented kingdoms and city-states hardened into nation-states; how gunpowder, fortifications, navies, and taxation transformed the military and the state; how diplomacy and the balance of power ...

Before Europe claimed to discover the world, al-Biruni had already measured it. Long before the European Age of Discovery, long before Mercator’s maps, colonial Indology, modern anthropology, or the scientific study of comparative religion, a Persianate Muslim scholar from Central Asia was asking questions centuries ahead of his time. How large is the Earth? How can a civilization understand another without reducing it to rumor? How do calendars reveal the soul of a people? How can religion be compared without mockery? How can stones, metals, and minerals be studied through measurement ...

The Renaissance was real. But it was not born alone. For centuries, the Western Renaissance has been remembered as Europe’s great awakening — the moment when art, science, philosophy, medicine, mathematics, and discovery returned after a long age of darkness. But what if that story is too small? Before Florence, there was Baghdad. Before European universities became centers of learning, Arabic and Latin translators carried vast libraries of knowledge across borders. Before Renaissance medicine, Islamic and Persian physicians had built systems of diagnosis, treatment, hospitals, and ...

More than ever before, the Renaissance stands out as one of the defining moments in world history. Between 1400 and 1600, European perceptions of society, culture, politics, and even humanity itself emerged in ways that continue to affect not only Europe but the entire world. In this wide-ranging exploration of the Renaissance, Jerry Brotton shows the period as a time of unprecedented intellectual excitement, cultural experimentation, and interaction on a global scale, alongside a darker side of religion, intolerance, slavery, and massive inequality of wealth and status. 

A standalone audio exclusive set in the world of the Red Knight. Taking place in Etrusca, Terra Antica, thousands of miles from Alba and Liviapolis, an ancient power is rediscovered.