Hybrid Renaissance

by Peter Burke

Hybrid Renaissance  introduces the idea that the Renaissance in Italy, elsewhere in Europe, and in the world beyond Europe is an example of cultural hybridization. The two key concepts used in this book are "hybridization" and "Renaissance". Roughly speaking, hybridity refers to something new that emerges from the combination of diverse older elements. (The term "hybridization" is preferable to "hybridity" because it refers to a process rather than to a state, and also because it encourages the writer and the readers alike to think in terms of where there is more or less, rather than presence versus absence.) The book begins with a discussion of the concept of cultural hybridization and a cluster of other concepts related to it. Then comes a geography of cultural hybridization focusing on three courts, major cities (whether ports or capitals) and frontiers. The following seven chapters describe the hybridity of the Renaissance in different architecture, painting and sculpture, languages, literature, music, philosophy and law and finally religion. The essay concludes with a brief account of attempts to resist hybridization or to purify cultures or domains from what was already hybridized.

Genres: History

284 pages, Paperback

Published May 15, 2016

About the author

Peter Burke is a British historian and professor. He was educated by the Jesuits and at St John's College, Oxford, and was a doctoral candidate at St Antony's College. From 1962 to 1979, he was part of the School of European Studies at Sussex University, before moving to the University of Cambridge, where he holds the title of Professor Emeritus of Cultural History and Fellow of Emmanuel College. Burke is celebrated as a historian not only of the early modern era, but one who emphasizes the relevance of social and cultural history to modern issues. He is married to Brazilian historian Maria Lúcia Garcia Pallares-Burke.

Reviews

[Madhubrata · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading early modern history is positively amusing, when it confirms that adage about things remaining the same, the more they change. The last chapter, discussing "counter hybridization" and anti-miscegenation anxieties, is quite uncanny in the way these debates have continued, almost unadulterated, into the contemporary political sphere.