The World at First Light: A New History of the Renaissance

by Bernd Roeck

A magisterial history of the Renaissance and the birth of the modern world

The cultural epoch we know as the Renaissance emerged at a certain time and in a certain place. Why then and not earlier? Why there and not elsewhere? In The World at First Light, historian Bernd Roeck explores the cultural and historical preconditions that enabled the European Renaissance. Roeck shows that the rediscovery of ancient knowledge, including the science of the medieval Arab world, played a critical role in shaping the beginnings of Western modernity. He explains that the Renaissance emerged in a part of Europe where competing states and cities formed relatively open societies. Most of the era’s creative minds―from Leonardo de Vinci and Michelangelo to Copernicus and Galileo―came from the middle classes. The art of arguing flowered, the basso continuo to intellectual and cultural breakthroughs.

Roeck argues that two revolutions shaped the Renaissance: a media revolution, triggered by Gutenberg’s invention of movable type―which itself was a driving force behind the scientific revolution and the advent of modern science. He also reports on the dark side of the era―hatred of Jews, witch panic, religious wars, and the atrocities of colonialism. In a series of meditative counterfactuals, Roeck considers other cultural rebirths throughout the first millennium, from the Islamic empire to the Carolingians, examining why the epic developments of the Renaissance took place in the West and not elsewhere. The complicated legacy of the Renaissance, he shows, encompasses the art of critical thinking as learned from the ancients, the emergence of the modern state, and the genesis of democracy.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Art, Renaissance, World History, Cultural, Philosophy

1184 pages, Hardcover

First published June 3, 2025

Reviews

[Kenneth Kirkman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not a patch on Burckhardt. The author sets a twofold purpose; to chart the sources and historical developments that led to the Renaissance and to explain why this movement occurred in Western Europe rather than elsewhere. He achieves minimal success on both counts. Despite the considerable scholarship that has gone into the book, the picture he draws of the cultural, intellectual, scientific, and artistic antecedents of the Renaissance is so shallow that it is practically useless: one might learn that Plato and Aristotle were major philosophers whose works were major foundations for the Renaissance- but you would have no clue why this was the case, or which of their ideas were so historically important. Facts are often presented but not well connected. In order to disavow European colonialism and racism, he will often have recourse to various pious nostrums, insisting his work is not “Eurocentric”, an odd claim to make when the entire topic of the book is a cultural movement that took off in Western Europe.
The author’s analysis of religious topics is also superficial and contentious, to the point of a total lack of sophistication. For instance, he states at one point “Only Western arrogance would consider Christian faith superior to Buddhist teachings, with their striving for inner purification and peace.” It’s an unfortunate claim on several levels: 1) It seems to ignore similar desires within Christian faith for that same inner purification and peace 2) he has not discussed Buddhist beliefs at any length, so he gives the reader no information on which to make a comparison and 3) his overall treatment of theology is so reductionist and unsophisticated it seems unlikely he has read any of the primary sources in any depth. Regarding Augustine, whom he rightly denotes as the most important theologian in western Christendom, he provides a summary of a few paragraphs. The punch line of these is not to discuss any of his ideas in detail, but to identify him as exemplifying the tendency of Christian beliefs to be both honey and poison. I don’t expect the author to be a theologian or or apologist for any religion; but the offhand manner in which he makes his claims and the utter lack of argument for them in the text renders Roeck pontificating and obnoxious. This volume is magisterial only in its heft, never its depth.

[Alexander B · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a decent history book with a long and global scope, but it also suffers from the diseases characteristic of such books. Too often it devolves into listing off historic events and characters, whereas there is little in the way of a clear general narrative (even at the level of a chapter) or method. One thing I would love to see is an examination of the historiography of renaissance and a much more integrated analysis of the cultural developments within the political environment. For example, how did the changes in the government of Florence affect the art funding and styles? Instead, this book presents the political history and the art history as parallel. Finally, the author is awkwardly defensive of his own conservatism in regular tirades that amount to “I swear I’m not a European supremacist buuuut”. I believe the lack of a deeper political and philosophical analysis of the period has to do with this sort of confused conservatism. The search for a perfect renaissance book continues.

Update: unexpectedly, Ada Palmer’s “Inventing renaissance” is a much better telling of the interactions between politics, art, and biographies of particular figures, as well as a critical re-examination of the concept of renaissance. But it is very much focused on the Italian renaissance.

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily one of the best history books I’ve ever read