Renaissances
Renaissances
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GBPOne of the most distinguished social scientists in the world addresses one of the central historical questions of the past millennium: does the European Renaissance deserve its unique status at the very heart of our notions of modernity? Jack Goody scrutinises the European model in relation to parallel renaissances that have taken place in other cultural areas, primarily Islam and China, and emphasises what Europe owed to non-European influences. Renaissances continues that strand of historical analysis critical of Eurocentrism that Goody has developed in recent works like The East and the West (1996) or The Theft of History (2006). This book is wide-ranging, powerful, deftly argued, and draws upon the author's long experience of working in Africa and elsewhere. Not since Toynbee in The Study of History has anybody attempted quite what Jack Goody is undertaking in Renaissances, and the result is as accessible as it is ambitious.
- A major extended essay from one of the world's leading social scientists, in the style of The Theft of History
- Explains why the European Renaissance cannot be viewed purely as a European phenomenon
- Very accessible, very engaging, and very broad-ranging
Reviews & endorsements
'Renaissances is a magisterial book.' Jonathan Benthall, The Times Literary Supplement
Product details
December 2009Hardback
9780521768016
342 pages
229 × 152 × 21 mm
0.63kg
10 colour illus.
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. The idea of a renaissance
- 2. Montpellier and medicine in Europe
- 3. Religion and the secular
- 4. Rebirth in Islam
- 5. Emancipation and efflorescence in Judaism
- 6. Cultural continuity in India
- 7. Renaissance in China
- 8. Were renaissances only European?
- Appendices.
