Theodore K. Rabb (1937–2019)

I'd really give it a 3.5. Read it for my Renaissance History class and liked what it had to offer, but felt that it was - not disorganized, but rather thrown at the reader in an overwhelming way, presuming quite a bit of background. I got most of the early Renaissance stuff, but not the later because we focused mainly on Italy during the class, and there is a major group of scholars who see the Renaissance as having happened in Italy and the spread of Renaissance ideas in Europe as being just that - repercussions. So, I liked Rabb's thesis of periodization being incredibly important in the study of history and when and why they form and how, and when and why and how they break down, but I didn't really go along with his timing exatly, and because of how he did time the period, I was quite lost. The book should have been longer and included more detail, to my mind.… (más)

A collection of essays whose only connecting thread is that they all involve Europe in some way. That's it. Some are art history, others detail revolutions. Some are written in a dry academic style, while others read like pop history, and one, Paul Kennedy's "The Battle of the Nile," is written from the perspective of a fictional Egyptian fisherman (and manages to be actually offensive in how artificial, unconvincing, and Orientalist the fiction is). Some essays relate controversies or mysteries, while others just recount events and periodically insert "I wish I'd been there to see that."

I wish this book had more of a point. They should have curated this collection so that it focused on "key turning points in the drama of European history," as stated on the back, OR focused it on points of history that are still mysterious. As it stands, it's a bunch of utterly random bits of history, most of which is related poorly.… (más)