
The Other Renaissance
From Copernicus to Shakespeare: How the Renaissance in Northern Europe Transformed the World
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Narrated by:
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Roger May
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By:
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Paul Strathern
About this listen
An original, illuminating history of the northern European Renaissance in art, science, and philosophy, which often rivaled its Italian counterpart.
It is generally accepted that the European Renaissance began in Italy.
However, a historical transformation of similar magnitude also took place in northern Europe at the same time. This "Other Renaissance" was initially centered on the city of Bruges in Flanders (modern Belgium), but its influence was soon being felt in France, the German states, London, and even in Italy itself. The northern Renaissance, like the southern Renaissance, largely took place during the period between the end of the Medieval age (circa mid-fourteenth century) and the advent of the Age of Enlightenment (circa end of seventeenth century).
Following a sequence of major figures, including Copernicus, Gutenberg, Luther, Catherine de' Medici, Rabelais, van Eyck, and Shakespeare, Paul Strathern tells the fascinating story of how this "Other Renaissance" played as significant a role as the Italian renaissance in bringing our modern world into being.
©2023 Paul Strathern (P)2024 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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The Birth of Classical Europe
- A History from Troy to Augustine
- By: Simon Price, Peter Thonemann
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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To an extraordinary extent we continue to live in the shadow of the classical world. At every level, from languages to calendars to political systems, we are the descendants of a “classical Europe,” using frames of reference created by ancient Mediterranean cultures. As this consistently fresh and surprising new audio book makes clear, however, this was no less true for the inhabitants of those classical civilizations themselves, whose myths, history, and buildings were an elaborate engagement with an already old and revered past - one filled with great leaders and writers....
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Excellent overview of the Classical World
- By David I. Williams on 01-12-14
By: Simon Price, and others
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The Upside-Down World
- Meetings with the Dutch Masters
- By: Benjamin Moser
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Beyond the sainted Rembrandt—who harbored a startling darkness—and the mysterious Vermeer, whose true subject, it turned out, was lurking in plain sight, Moser got to know a whole galaxy of geniuses: the doomed virtuoso Carel Fabritius, the anguished wunderkind Jan Lievens, the deaf prodigy Hendrik Avercamp. Year after year, as he tried to make a life for himself in the Netherlands, Moser found friends among these centuries-dead artists. And he found that they, too, were struggling with the same questions that he was.
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Great Book
- By PaulB on 02-29-24
By: Benjamin Moser
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Battle for the Island Kingdom
- England's Destiny 1000-1066
- By: Don Hollway
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In a saga reminiscent of Game of Thrones and The Last Kingdom, Battle for the Island Kingdom reveals the life-and-death struggle for power which changed the course of history. The six decades leading up to 1066 were defined by bloody wars and intrigues, in which three peoples vied for supremacy over the island kingdom. In this epic retelling, Don Hollway (The Last Viking) recounts the clashes of Vikings, Anglo-Saxons and Normans, their warlords and their conniving queens.
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Wonderfully told
- By Matt on 08-03-24
By: Don Hollway
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Spain
- The Centre of the World 1519-1682
- By: Robert Goodwin
- Narrated by: Jeremy Clyde
- Length: 21 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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In the sixteenth century, the Spaniards became the first nation in history to have worldwide reach--across most of Europe to the Americas, the Philippines, and India. The Golden Age of the Spanish Empire would establish five centuries of Western supremacy across the globe and usher in an era of transatlantic exploration that eventually gave rise to the modern world. It was a time of discovery and adventure, of great political and social change. Robert Goodwin delves into previously unrecorded sources to bring this tumultuous and exciting period to life
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Deep look at an accidental empire
- By Clavain on 03-17-25
By: Robert Goodwin
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Death in Florence
- The Medici, Savonarola, and the Battle for the Soul of the Renaissance City
- By: Paul Strathern
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Death in Florence illuminates one of the defining moments in Western history - the bloody and dramatic story of the battle for the soul of Renaissance Florence. By the end of the fifteenth century, Florence was well established as the home of the Renaissance. In an exhilaratingly rich and deeply researched story, Paul Strathern reveals the paradoxes, self-doubts, and political compromises that made the battle for the soul of the Renaissance city one of the most complex and important moments in Western history.
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Extravagant rich peacocks and true believers
- By Philo on 10-17-15
By: Paul Strathern
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Goethe
- His Faustian Life - The Extraordinary Story of Modern Germany, a Troubled Genius and the Poem that Made Our World
- By: A. N. Wilson
- Narrated by: A.N. Wilson
- Length: 16 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Goethe was the inventor of the psychological novel, a pioneer scientist, great man of the theatre and a leading politician. As A. N. Wilson argues in this groundbreaking biography, it was his genius and insatiable curiosity that helped catapult the Western world into the modern era. A N. Wilson tackles the life of Goethe with characteristic wit and verve. From his youth as a wild literary prodigy to his later years as Germany’s most respected elder statesman, Wilson hones in on Goethe’s undying obsession with the work he would spend his entire life writing – Faust.
By: A. N. Wilson
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Princes of the Renaissance
- By: Mary Hollingsworth
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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A history of the Renaissance told through the lives of its most influential patrons. From the late Middle Ages, the independent Italian city states were taken over by powerful families who installed themselves as dynastic rulers. Inspired by the humanists, the princes of 15th- and 16th-century Italy immersed themselves in the culture of antiquity, commissioning palaces, villas and churches inspired by the architecture of ancient Rome, and offering patronage to artists and writers.
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ideal
- By BaliDoug on 07-04-22
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Laughter in Ancient Rome
- On Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up
- By: Mary Beard
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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What made the Romans laugh? Was ancient Rome a carnival, filled with practical jokes and hearty chuckles? Or was it a carefully regulated culture in which the uncontrollable excess of laughter was a force to fear-a world of wit, irony, and knowing smiles? How did Romans make sense of laughter? What role did it play in the world of the law courts, the imperial palace, or the spectacles of the arena?
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Love Mary Beard but what might have been
- By Todd Woollen on 07-05-25
By: Mary Beard
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Rough Crossings
- The Slaves, the British, and the American Revolution
- By: Simon Schama
- Narrated by: Simon Schama
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Abridged
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If you were black in America at the start of the Revolutionary War, whom would you want to win? In response to a declaration by the last governor of Virginia that any rebel-owned slave who escaped and served the King would be emancpated, tens of thousands of blacks voted with feet, escaping to fight beside the British. Originally designed to break the plantations of the American South, this military strategy instead unleashed one of the great exoduses in American history.
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Outstanding book
- By major on 05-12-06
By: Simon Schama
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The Borgias
- The Hidden History
- By: G. J. Meyer
- Narrated by: Enn Reitel
- Length: 19 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The startling truth behind one of the most notorious dynasties in history is revealed in a remarkable new account by the acclaimed author of The Tudors and A World Undone. Sweeping aside the gossip, slander, and distortion that have shrouded the Borgias for centuries, G. J. Meyer offers an unprecedented portrait of the infamous Renaissance family and their storied milieu.
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Marvelous !
- By Cinders on 08-02-13
By: G. J. Meyer
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Inventing the Renaissance
- The Myth of a Golden Age
- By: Ada Palmer
- Narrated by: Candida Gubbins
- Length: 30 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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From the darkness of a plagued and war-torn Middle Ages, the Renaissance (we’re told) heralds the dawning of a new world—a halcyon age of art, prosperity, and rebirth. Hogwash! or so says award-winning novelist and historian Ada Palmer. In Inventing the Renaissance, Palmer turns her witty and irreverent eye on the fantasies we’ve told ourselves about Europe’s not-so-golden age, myths she sets right with sharp clarity.
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Completely changed my perspective of Machiavelli
- By Amazon Customer on 04-30-25
By: Ada Palmer
My only quibbles are first, his argument that Catherine de' Medici saved the Northern Renaissance is somewhat thin, and second, his argument that Richelieu created modern statecraft needed more exposition.
Still, a very rewarding and satisfying listen.
Comprehensive study
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