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Renaissance: The Transformation of the West
26 hours and 35 minutes
While it's easy to get caught up - and, rightfully so - in the art of the Renaissance, you cannot have a full, rounded understanding of just how important these centuries were without digging beneath the surface, without investigating the period in terms of its politics, its spirituality, its philosophies, its economics, and its societies.
Do just that with these 48 lectures that consider the European Renaissance from all sides, that disturb traditional understandings, that tip sacred cows, and that enlarges our understanding of how the Renaissance revolutionized the Western world.
Guiding you through centuries of exhilarating change in Europe with the knowledge, insights, and discernment of a master scholar, Professor McNabb offers new perspectives on familiar figures and events while focusing on often-unexplored or overlooked areas, such as the role of women in the Renaissance, the daily lives of the rural poor and urban elite, the classical roots of Renaissance thinking, and the powerful connections between the Renaissance and the Reformation.
By observing the Renaissance less casually and more critically, you'll uncover insights and connections you can't find in typical narratives that celebrate these remarkable, tumultuous centuries. These lectures are an authoritative, uncompromising, and multidisciplinary way to experience not just one of Europe's Renaissance movements - but all of them.
While it's easy to get caught up - and, rightfully so - in the art of the Renaissance, you cannot have a full, rounded understanding of just how important these centuries were without digging beneath the surface, without investigating the period in terms of its politics, its spirituality, its philosophies, its economics, and its societies.
Do just that with these 48 lectures that consider the European Renaissance from all sides, that disturb traditional understandings, that tip sacred cows, and that enlarges our understanding of how the Renaissance revolutionized the Western world.
Guiding you through centuries of exhilarating change in Europe with the knowledge, insights, and discernment of a master scholar, Professor McNabb offers new perspectives on familiar figures and events while focusing on often-unexplored or overlooked areas, such as the role of women in the Renaissance, the daily lives of the rural poor and urban elite, the classical roots of Renaissance thinking, and the powerful connections between the Renaissance and the Reformation.
By observing the Renaissance less casually and more critically, you'll uncover insights and connections you can't find in typical narratives that celebrate these remarkable, tumultuous centuries. These lectures are an authoritative, uncompromising, and multidisciplinary way to experience not just one of Europe's Renaissance movements - but all of them.
27 pages, Audible Audio
First published July 21, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
August 19, 2019
This is an outstanding and comprehensive series of 48 lectures on the Renaissance and Reformation.
Professor Jennifer McNabb knows her subject and just as importantly understands how to make it meaningful and accessible. I recommend this series to anyone interested in this period of history. I learned a great deal.
Professor Jennifer McNabb knows her subject and just as importantly understands how to make it meaningful and accessible. I recommend this series to anyone interested in this period of history. I learned a great deal.
August 29, 2024
Why do socio-economic historians expand the Renaissance to cover early modern history? They don’t show how doing so changes our view of its culture. (Cf Brotton’s VSI).
July 16, 2020
The book that accompanies the Teaching Company series of 48 lectures on the Renaissance given by Jennifer McNabb.
July 14, 2023
I would round this up to 3.5 stars. Professor McNabb speaks very clearly and is easy to understand. In a course of 48 lectures, it is important to be able to hear what is being said well. 48 lectures is a lot of material to get through. Despite its title, this course also went quite a ways into the Reformation, which Professor McNabb considered to be part of the Renaissance. Some of the most interesting of the lectures were in the Reformation section. I know a fair amount about this time period, so I was disappointed with parts of this series for not going into more detail. Professor McNabb wanted to focus on some of the newer findings of the time period, so she made a point of focusing on daily life and how the common people would live during this age. She did still talk about some of the important rulers and political/religious figures who rose to prominence at this time, but it was still in an overview kind of way.
There were some good lectures, such as on the English Reformation, the French wars of religion, Renaissance letters, Women at the Italian Court, and Northern Renaissance :Literature and Drama, for example. Professor McNabb knows her time period well and is up to date on the latest scholarship. I have previously listened to Professor Bartlett's course on the Italian Renaissance, which was only 36 lectures, but I felt I learned more in that course. Professor Bartlett really dove into the time period and fleshed out the Italian city-states during the Renaissance, so you got to know the individuals that brought this time period to life.
This series of lectures took me a while to get through. I would be willing to go back and give it another listen, as I am sure there are things I missed, since I listened while driving. But if my attention is wandering that much, that is also a statement in itself.
There were some good lectures, such as on the English Reformation, the French wars of religion, Renaissance letters, Women at the Italian Court, and Northern Renaissance :Literature and Drama, for example. Professor McNabb knows her time period well and is up to date on the latest scholarship. I have previously listened to Professor Bartlett's course on the Italian Renaissance, which was only 36 lectures, but I felt I learned more in that course. Professor Bartlett really dove into the time period and fleshed out the Italian city-states during the Renaissance, so you got to know the individuals that brought this time period to life.
This series of lectures took me a while to get through. I would be willing to go back and give it another listen, as I am sure there are things I missed, since I listened while driving. But if my attention is wandering that much, that is also a statement in itself.
November 17, 2020
Absolutely loved it.
Before this Great Course, I could barely spell Renaissance. Meaning, I knew almost nothing about it... other than once a year in cities across America there are fairs and festivals in which you can find lots of shops to buy all sorts of cool weaponry (typically at a very high price), witness horseback riding, falconry, jousting, so on and so forth.
Dr. Jennifer McNabb did a fantastic job with this Great Course and I learned an incredible amount about the Renaissance. I took around 1,000 words worth of bullet format notes while going through this and truly enjoyed all forty-seven (47) lectures.
I would absolutely recommend this for someone who the only thing they really know about the Renaissance is associated with the festivals/fair and want to learn more about this incredible period of human history.
My ~1000 word bullet format spoiler filled notes:
Before this Great Course, I could barely spell Renaissance. Meaning, I knew almost nothing about it... other than once a year in cities across America there are fairs and festivals in which you can find lots of shops to buy all sorts of cool weaponry (typically at a very high price), witness horseback riding, falconry, jousting, so on and so forth.
Dr. Jennifer McNabb did a fantastic job with this Great Course and I learned an incredible amount about the Renaissance. I took around 1,000 words worth of bullet format notes while going through this and truly enjoyed all forty-seven (47) lectures.
I would absolutely recommend this for someone who the only thing they really know about the Renaissance is associated with the festivals/fair and want to learn more about this incredible period of human history.
My ~1000 word bullet format spoiler filled notes:
March 2, 2024
Really detailed and goes from the 1300s to the 1600s of European history. She attempts to link in the Reformation, Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution at the end. It starts to fall apart a bit at the end. Overall really helpful and thoughtful.
April 29, 2020
Great audiobook. A bit long at 24hours, but well worth the time invested. She covers all aspects of life during the Renaissance in engaging, bite sized pieces and sets up the early modern age nicely. She is easy to listen to and infuses her voices with her fascination for the period and appreciation for the accomplishments of the period. Well researched and she obviously knows her subject well. I would definitely recommend the book for anyone interested in learning more about the Renaissance or simply interested in history.
November 11, 2018
It's so informative and so well done. The content is extensive and Jennifer breaks down almost every aspect of the Renaissance. This lecture made me into a huge Great Courses fan, it was just so informative and interesting. I would recommend to any fan of history. I learned so much about the Renaissance.
January 11, 2019
So informative. Very long, but great. I've always had an interest in the Renaissance and this book helped me learn so much more. Jennifer was amazing!
December 21, 2020
I've been enjoying books about the Renaissance for a decade and still learned a lot of neat things from Dr. McNabb. I really appreciated the perspectives she brought to the table.
December 28, 2019
I confess, I am writing a review of this bloody long book not because it is not exactly as described in the blurb, but because only three other people have reviewed it. My review might actually be read, in other words.
First, about the title. For me, the Renaissance is synonymous with the Italian Renaissance. This author sees everything that took place in Europe during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries as interconnected. Changes in religion, borders, trade, and weaponry are all part of the Renaissance. If you listen to all 48 lectures (!) you will have a much better understanding of European history after the Middle Ages. Whether you want to or not.
Yes, you can argue that the Renaissance was not just limited to a couple of cities in Italy, but you can't argue that the really cool shit happened in Florence and Venice and that is where this book begins. Which is sexier? The Birth of Venus or the Hapsburg-Valois wars? The Bonfire of the Vanities or revolutions in taxation in Elizabethan England? RTTOTW starts out with familiar names and familiar stories
and then turns into a history lesson. Which, given that it is a history course, can hardly be held against it. But by the time Jennifer McNabb (who is quite easy to listen to) finishes reading the last line on the last CD, I am homesick for Italy.
I think this could be fixed by periodically interrupting the narrative with "Meanwhile, back at the Doge's Palace..." or "And speaking about blunders, what about the Pope Julius II's daughter?" Just a suggestion.
All in all, a very informative book that I was grateful I found on CD.
First, about the title. For me, the Renaissance is synonymous with the Italian Renaissance. This author sees everything that took place in Europe during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries as interconnected. Changes in religion, borders, trade, and weaponry are all part of the Renaissance. If you listen to all 48 lectures (!) you will have a much better understanding of European history after the Middle Ages. Whether you want to or not.
Yes, you can argue that the Renaissance was not just limited to a couple of cities in Italy, but you can't argue that the really cool shit happened in Florence and Venice and that is where this book begins. Which is sexier? The Birth of Venus or the Hapsburg-Valois wars? The Bonfire of the Vanities or revolutions in taxation in Elizabethan England? RTTOTW starts out with familiar names and familiar stories
and then turns into a history lesson. Which, given that it is a history course, can hardly be held against it. But by the time Jennifer McNabb (who is quite easy to listen to) finishes reading the last line on the last CD, I am homesick for Italy.
I think this could be fixed by periodically interrupting the narrative with "Meanwhile, back at the Doge's Palace..." or "And speaking about blunders, what about the Pope Julius II's daughter?" Just a suggestion.
All in all, a very informative book that I was grateful I found on CD.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 26, 2021
Much of this course felt designed more for those who already have a general understanding of the Renaissance world and who want to know more rather than for those who are trying to begin learning with no such understanding at hand. As a member of the latter group, I was sometimes confused and overwhelmed in the earlier lectures at the many names and events Mcnabb would reference as though they were general knowledge, but which I had never even heard of before. Some of the editing for the audio could’ve used some work as there were a number of long pauses that didn’t feel necessary and made me feel my earphones were broken.
But all that aside, Mcnabb clearly knows her stuff. She has an engaging way of teaching that both puts you inside the Renaissance world while keeping you in the modern one at the same time. Without directly pointing it out for much of the series, Mcnabb elegantly illustrates just how much of the Renaissance is still alive today - how many of the questions asked then are still being pondered now. I’m no expert on this time period - the medieval world is where I prefer to spend my free time exploring - but I enjoyed taking a deeper look at this world, which is both so old and yet so close by at the same time.
But all that aside, Mcnabb clearly knows her stuff. She has an engaging way of teaching that both puts you inside the Renaissance world while keeping you in the modern one at the same time. Without directly pointing it out for much of the series, Mcnabb elegantly illustrates just how much of the Renaissance is still alive today - how many of the questions asked then are still being pondered now. I’m no expert on this time period - the medieval world is where I prefer to spend my free time exploring - but I enjoyed taking a deeper look at this world, which is both so old and yet so close by at the same time.
January 31, 2020
A good, but not quite great history of the Renaissance.
McNabb has the unenviable task of trying to sum up a movement that took more than two centuries and changed every place on the planet. She does a decent job of this. I think one of the aspects of this lecture series/book that I liked best was the way McNabb incorporated women into her narrative. This Great Courses series is fairly new, and there is Great Course on the Renaissance that is approximately a decade older, and, from looking over the chapter titles, it seems like the older one lacked any discussion of women. McNabb's addition of this kind of interesting information makes her course more complete.
Points off for not doing a great job of linking different chapters together to create a narrative that is comprehensible. Going from one chapter to the next, I had trouble making the connections. She also occasionally got off topic, bringing in topics like Ming China and the explorations of Zheng He when she did not seem to know much about it and it had little value in the comparative terms that she offered.
Still, McNabb's course makes a good starting point.
McNabb has the unenviable task of trying to sum up a movement that took more than two centuries and changed every place on the planet. She does a decent job of this. I think one of the aspects of this lecture series/book that I liked best was the way McNabb incorporated women into her narrative. This Great Courses series is fairly new, and there is Great Course on the Renaissance that is approximately a decade older, and, from looking over the chapter titles, it seems like the older one lacked any discussion of women. McNabb's addition of this kind of interesting information makes her course more complete.
Points off for not doing a great job of linking different chapters together to create a narrative that is comprehensible. Going from one chapter to the next, I had trouble making the connections. She also occasionally got off topic, bringing in topics like Ming China and the explorations of Zheng He when she did not seem to know much about it and it had little value in the comparative terms that she offered.
Still, McNabb's course makes a good starting point.
November 4, 2022
An interesting topic told at times in an extremely dry form that reminded me why I didn't like history in school. Some lectures are so overwhelmingly packed with facts and names and dates that you need to go over them several times. At the same time, some lectures are very good and cover selected sub-topics very well. Overall, it left me with very mixed impressions. Especially since some of other TGC courses cover this historical period in a much more engaging, albeit less detailed form.
January 26, 2023
Well written history shouldn't be so obvious in its liberal viewpoints.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews