98 books like The Great Re-Think

By Colin Tudge,

Here are 98 books that The Great Re-Think fans have personally recommended if you like The Great Re-Think. Shepherd is a community of 10,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Picture and Poetry, 1560-1620: Relations Between Literature and the Visual Arts in the English Renaissance

Elizabeth Goldring Author Of Nicholas Hilliard: Life of an Artist

From my list on Tudor art and architecture.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been fascinated by the Tudors since childhood – in spite of, or perhaps because of, the fact that I grew up in the American Midwest, where Tudor artefacts were few and far between. A family holiday to England, when I was fourteen, sparked the beginning of a life-long love affair, which I have been lucky enough to turn into a career focused on all things Tudor. After receiving my PhD from Yale University, I took up a post-doctoral fellowship in England, at Warwick University, with which I have been affiliated ever since. I am currently an Honorary Reader at Warwick and working on a new book, on Hans Holbein.

Elizabeth's book list on Tudor art and architecture

Elizabeth Goldring Why did Elizabeth love this book?

A quirky and brilliantly insightful book which is now, unfortunately, out of print. But do snap it up if you chance upon it in a second-hand bookshop or can find a copy online. It is deceptively modest-looking: a slender paperback, with only a handful of illustrations. My hunch is that it will change the way you think about paintings, sculptures, and buildings in the works of Shakespeare, Spenser, Donne, and their contemporaries. Certainly, that is the effect it had on me.

By Lucy Gent,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Picture and Poetry, 1560-1620 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An interdisciplinary study that shows how works of art influenced English poets in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Included in the appendix is a survey of the ownership and distribution of books of art and architecture in English Renaissance libraries. Very light foxing on front panel. iv , 100 pages. stiff paper wrappers. small 8vo..


Book cover of The Establishment of the European Hegemony, 1415-1715: Trade and Exploration in the Age of the Renaissance

Stephen J. Pyne Author Of The Great Ages of Discovery: How Western Civilization Learned about a Wider World

From my list on the history of exploration.

Why am I passionate about this?

My 15 seasons at Grand Canyon inspired me to understand its story of revelation, which led to a fascination with the history of exploration overall.  This has resulted in a series of books about explorers, places explored, and a conceptual scaffolding by which to understand it all: a geologist of the American West (Grove Karl Gilbert); Antarctica (The Ice); revisiting the Rim with better conceptual gear, How the Canyon Became Grand; and using its mission as a narrative spine, Voyager: Exploration, Space, and Third Great Age of DiscoveryThe grand sweep deserved a grand summary, so I’ve ended with The Great Ages of Discovery.

Stephen's book list on the history of exploration

Stephen J. Pyne Why did Stephen love this book?

When I was first attracted to exploration history, I was mostly interested in the 19th and 20th centuries, but wanting to understand its pedigree, I searched back to the great voyages of the Renaissance and kept running into books by Parry. He’s everywhere, and always insightful.

His most widely read book is The Age of Reconnaissance: Discovery, Exploration, and Settlement, 1450-1650. But despite its clunky title, Establishment is my favorite because it distills the whole story – its events, its technology, its intellectual foundations – into almost crystalline form. A wonderful place to begin, or to return to and consolidate whatever else you’ve learned.

By J.H. Parry,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Establishment of the European Hegemony, 1415-1715 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is a new release of the original 1961 edition.


Book cover of The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

Benjamin Hoffmann Author Of The Paradoxes of Posterity

From my list on why people write books.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in Bordeaux, a city that became prominent during the eighteenth century. My hometown inspired my love of eighteenth-century French studies, which led me to the Sorbonne, then to Yale University where I earned a PhD. Today, I am an Associate Professor at The Ohio State University. I am the author of eight novels and monographs published in France and the US, including American Pandemonium, Posthumous America, and Sentinel Island. My work explores numerous genres to question a number of recurring themes: exile and the representation of otherness; nostalgia and the experience of bereavement; the social impact of new technologies; America’s history and its troubled present.

Benjamin's book list on why people write books

Benjamin Hoffmann Why did Benjamin love this book?

While The Swerve is not exactly a book about posterity, it nonetheless provides a wonderful case study of a text that remained on the verge of destruction for centuries, before going on to play a tremendously influential role in shaping our modern world. This book is none other than On The Nature of Things by Lucretius –one of the foundational texts of Western culture, whose impact was postponed to the fifteenth century, as it would not have seen the light of day without its serendipitous rediscovery in a German monastery by Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459). This gripping work offers a fascinating example of the delayed reception of a prominent cultural object, a proof of its extraordinary resilience, and, at the same time, an illustration of the role played by chance and accidents on the transmission of texts to posterity. 

By Stephen Greenblatt,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked The Swerve as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the winter of 1417, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties plucked a very old manuscript off a dusty shelf in a remote monastery, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. He was Poggio Bracciolini, the greatest book hunter of the Renaissance. His discovery, Lucretius' ancient poem On the Nature of Things, had been almost entirely lost to history for more than a thousand years.

It was a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functions without the aid of gods, that religious fear is damaging to…


Book cover of Love and Death in Renaissance Italy

Nicholas Scott Baker Author Of In Fortune's Theater: Financial Risk and the Future in Renaissance Italy

From my list on exploring what what Renaissance Italy was really like.

Why am I passionate about this?

I teach the histories of early modern Europe and European worlds at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. I developed a fascination for the period and, especially, for the Italian Renaissance as an undergraduate before going on to complete a PhD at Northwestern University in the United States. I love the contradictions and tensions of the period: a society and culture in transition from what we call medieval understandings and worldviews to what we see as more modern ones. These are some of the books that helped to fuel my passion for Renaissance Italian history and to answer some of my questions about what life was really like in Renaissance Italy.

Nicholas' book list on exploring what what Renaissance Italy was really like

Nicholas Scott Baker Why did Nicholas love this book?

This book presents six vignettes of sex and violence plucked by Thomas Cohen from the archives of the papal governor of sixteenth-century Rome.

I love Cohen’s passion for telling a good story without losing sight of its broader historical significance. Examining the everyday lives of people in the streets, Cohen reveals how a clash between the contradictory currents of Italian Renaissance society fueled much of its conflicts and discontents.

On the one hand, Christian religion preached mercy, forgiveness, and community, on the other the compelling codes of honor, familial loyalty, and unwritten social rules promoted violence and vengeance.

The book also reveals how women and other socially marginalized figures could navigate and manipulate these codes to find space and freedom in a world dominated by powerful men. 

By Thomas V. Cohen,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Love and Death in Renaissance Italy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Gratuitous sex. Graphic violence. Lies, revenge, and murder. Before there was digital cable or reality television, there was Renaissance Italy and the courts in which Italian magistrates meted out justice to the vicious and the villainous, the scabrous and the scandalous. As dramatic and as moving as the television show The Borgias, and a lot more true to life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy retells six piquant episodes from the Italian court just after 1550, as the Renaissance gave way to an era of Catholic reformation. Each of the chapters in this history chronicles a domestic drama around which…


Book cover of The Renaissance in Italy: A Social and Cultural History of the Rinascimento

Celeste McNamara Author Of The Bishop's Burden: Reforming the Catholic Church in Early Modern Italy

From my list on Renaissance Italy.

Why am I passionate about this?

I teach medieval and early modern European history at Dublin City University, with a particular interest in 16th-18th century Italian history. My own research focuses on the religious, legal, and popular culture of northern Italy, particularly Venice and the Veneto region. I became fascinated with Renaissance Italian history as an undergraduate at the College of William and Mary, and then went on to do a masters and a PhD at Northwestern University. I have taught at Northwestern, the College of William and Mary, the University of Warwick/Warwick in Venice, and the State University of New York at Cortland.

Celeste's book list on Renaissance Italy

Celeste McNamara Why did Celeste love this book?

This book is a fantastic, broad overview of the Italian Renaissance (or rinascimento, the term Ruggiero prefers and which his subjects would have recognized). The Italian Rinascimento was a period, according to Ruggiero, of vibrant cities, social change, and cultural expression, in which intellectuals, politicians, and artists both looked back to an idealized classical past and forward to uncharted territory.

I love the way this book focuses on issues that preoccupied the people he studies and incorporates topics often absent from works on the Renaissance, including women, sexuality, economics, disease and death, and religion, among others. Even more important, perhaps, is that it is clear, accessible, and engaging, and demonstrates a wealth of knowledge developed over an illustrious career as a historian of early modern Italy.

By Guido Ruggiero,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Renaissance in Italy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book offers a rich and exciting new way of thinking about the Italian Renaissance as both a historical period and a historical movement. Guido Ruggiero's work is based on archival research and new insights of social and cultural history and literary criticism, with a special emphasis on everyday culture, gender, violence and sexuality. The book offers a vibrant and relevant critical study of a period too long burdened by anachronistic and outdated ways of thinking about the past. Familiar, yet alien; pre-modern, but suggestively post-modern; attractive and troubling, this book returns the Italian Renaissance to center stage in our…


Book cover of The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion

Jeffrey Hantover Author Of The Three Deaths of Giovanni Fumiani

From my list on what to read when the museum is closed.

Why am I passionate about this?

For four decades, I have written about art for publications in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. I have interviewed, among other artists, Frank Stella, Mary Ellen Mark, Dale Chihuly, Deng Lin (the daughter of Deng Xiaoping), the most celebrated Vietnamese contemporary painters, and the leading Japanese ceramicists. My ideal vacation is to wander the cobblestone streets of Italy, walking into a church to see the art of Caravaggio, Raphael, and Bernini. On a trip to Venice, I saw the immense illusionist ceiling painting by Giovanni Fumiani in the church of San Pantalon. Looking up at angels swirling in heaven, the idea for my second novel was born. 

Jeffrey's book list on what to read when the museum is closed

Jeffrey Hantover Why did Jeffrey love this book?

I have never been able to look at Renaissance paintings of the Madonna and child the same after reading this brilliant and controversial book. I promise your eyes will be opened as well. These paintings were not simple religious decoration. Christ’s genitalia, exposed or covered, was a visible element in theological arguments in the Renaissance about the humanity of Christ. In our secular world, Steinberg argues, we have lost sight of the sexual component of these images. Steinberg’s breadth of learning is astounding, and the extensive footnotes are as stimulating as the text.  

By Leo Steinberg,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Steinberg argues in this work that the artists regarded the deliberate exposure of Christ's genitalia as an affirmation of kinship with the human condition. Christ's lifelong virginity, understood as potency under check, and the first offer of blood in the circumcision, both required acknowledgment of the genital organ. More than exercises in realism, these unabashed images underscore the crucial theological import of the Incarnation.


Book cover of Virgins of Venice: Broken Vows and Cloistered Lives in the Renaissance Convent

Gina Buonaguro Author Of The Virgins of Venice

From my list on women in Renaissance Venice.

Why am I passionate about this?

My goal as a writer is to revive lost women’s stories through historical fiction. After co-authoring several historical novels, our last mystery set in Renaissance Rome, we decided to set the sequel in Venice. When we decided to split amicably before finishing that novel, I had spent so much time researching Renaissance Venice that I instantly knew I wanted to set my first solo novel there and focus on girls and women whose stories are so frequently lost to history. So began a quest to learn everything I could about the females of 15th and 16th-century Venice, leading me toward both academic and fictional works of the era.

Gina's book list on women in Renaissance Venice

Gina Buonaguro Why did Gina love this book?

Mary Laven’s readable academic book Virgins of Venice is the definitive resource on the topic of nuns in Renaissance Venice. She explores every aspect of what it was like to be and live as a nun during a roughly two-hundred-year period, when most convents were filled with high-status women of no religious calling, forced to live there by their fathers and the strict social conventions of the time.

By Mary Laven,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Virgins of Venice as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A portrait of 16th and 17th century Italian convent life, set in the vibrant culture of late Renaissance Venice. Early 16th century Venice had 50 convents and about 3000 nuns. Far from being places of religious devotion, the convents were often little more than dumping-grounds for unmarried women fron the upper ranks of Venetian society. Often entering a convent at seven years old, these young women remained emotionally and socially attached to their families and to their way of life outside the convent. Supported by their private incomes, the nuns ate, dressed and behaved as gentlewomen. In contravention of their…


Book cover of De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem

Jacopo della Quercia Author Of License to Quill: A Novel of Shakespeare & Marlowe

From my list on understanding the dark side of Shakespeare's world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I prefer to write historical fiction because so many fascinating stories have already happened in the past, and these tales are filled with real-life characters with rich backstories and personalities. I try to find the best historical figures and scenarios I can through exhaustive research and then stitch them together into thrillers that mesh seamlessly with the history I researched. My books are written to educate and entertain, and nothing makes me prouder than when readers follow the breadcrumb trails I leave behind for further research. I hope you enjoy the hunt!

Jacopo's book list on understanding the dark side of Shakespeare's world

Jacopo della Quercia Why did Jacopo love this book?

De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem ["On the Fabric of the Human Body in Seven Books"] will likely catch you by surprise since, unlike most books featured on this website, this one was printed back in 1543. Fortunately, this means that anyone with a working Internet connection and web browser can access this mystifying medical atlas from the sixteenth century. Annotated editions of On the Fabric of the Human Body are available online from numerous medical colleges, so please take the time to find and appreciate this masterpiece of anatomy and artistic imagination.

By A. Vesalius, G. Hartenfels, J. Dalton

Why should I read it?

1 author picked De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book, "De humani corporis fabrica libri septem", by A. Vesalius, J. Dalton, G. Hartenfels, is a replication of a book originally published before 1568. It has been restored by human beings, page by page, so that you may enjoy it in a form as close to the original as possible.


Book cover of The Italian Renaissance and the Origins of the Modern Humanities: An Intellectual History, 1400-1800

Herman Paul Author Of Writing the History of the Humanities

From my list on the history of the humanities.

Why am I passionate about this?

I started my career as a historian of historiography and now hold a chair in the history of the humanities at Leiden University. What I like about this field is its comparative agenda. How does art history relate to media studies, and what do Arabists have in common with musicologists? Even more intriguing, as far as I’m concerned, is the question of what holds the humanities together. I think that history can help us understand how the humanities have developed as they have, differently in different parts of the world. As the field called history of the humanities has only recently emerged, there is plenty of work to do!

Herman's book list on the history of the humanities

Herman Paul Why did Herman love this book?

Whether or not one wants to make a case for the modern humanities deriving from the studia humanitatis in Renaissance Italy, it is undeniable that Renaissance humanism has been a source of endless fascination for humanities scholars. I enjoyed this book partly because it shows how this fascination led seventeenth- and eighteenth-century scholars to “recapitulate practices and mentalities that Italian Renaissance humanists pioneered.” It is such borrowing and reapplying that explains how a “humanistic tradition” could take shape. Another intriguing point is Celenza’s argument that this tradition has historically revolved as much around wisdom as about knowledge. While we modern academics know very well how to produce knowledge, what has happened to the wisdom part? Can the humanities survive, Celenza asks, without “reflection on the self and on life”?

By Christopher S. Celenza,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Italian Renaissance and the Origins of the Modern Humanities as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Christopher Celenza is one of the foremost contemporary scholars of the Renaissance. His ambitious new book focuses on the body of knowledge which we now call the humanities, charting its roots in the Italian Renaissance and exploring its development up to the Enlightenment. Beginning in the fifteenth century, the author shows how thinkers like Lorenzo Valla and Angelo Poliziano developed innovative ways to read texts closely, paying attention to historical context, developing methods to determine a text's authenticity, and taking the humanities seriously as a means of bettering human life. Alongside such novel reading practices, technology - the invention of…


Book cover of The Companion Guide to Florence

Francesca Fiorani Author Of The Shadow Drawing: How Science Taught Leonardo How to Paint

From my list on the art and culture of Renaissance Florence.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an art historian from Rome and a professor at the University of Virginia, where I also served as associate dean for the arts and humanities and chair of the art department. Ever since as an undergraduate I heard a lecture from a professor on how important science was for Renaissance artists, I have been fascinated with this topic. I look at scientific images, such as maps and diagrams, as works of art, and interpret famous paintings, such as Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, as scientific experiments. Among my books are The Marvel of Maps: Art, Cartography and Politics in the Renaissance, The Shadow Drawing. How Science Taught Leonardo How to Paint, and the digital publication Leonardo da Vinci and His Treatise on Painting.

Francesca's book list on the art and culture of Renaissance Florence

Francesca Fiorani Why did Francesca love this book?

There are millions of great guidebooks on Florence, but none is more entertaining, informative, and lively than Eve Borsook’s. An American art historian who lived in the city for most of her life, she unravels Florence's history, art, and politics with verve, knowledge, and insight. As one would expect in a guide, she describes systematically the city, a chapter for each neighborhood, each chapter starting with detailed descriptions of its most interesting streets, squares, buildings, and works of art. But what makes this guide invaluable are Borsook’s commentaries that follow her informative descriptions. I suggest you read this book before you go to Florence, plan your visit according to her chapters, and then, once in Florence, after you have seen the works she describes, read again the chapter on the neighborhood you visited that day. Renaissance Florence and the people who lived in it will come to life for you…

By Eve Borsook,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Companion Guide to Florence as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is a book to read before you go, to carry with you and to re-read on your return. SPECTATOR

A sure and illuminating guide. SUNDAY TIMES

The city state of Florence led the rest of the western world in art, science and political idealism in the middle ages. This early richness, the importance of the achievements of its famous sons, including Dante, Giotto, Leonardo and Michelangelo, the great quantity of visible remains, make Florence as a city to visit both alluring and challenging.

In true Companion Guide manner, this book describes, with the knowledge and insight distilled from long…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in the Renaissance, oligarchies, and Italy?

10,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Browse their picks for the best books about the Renaissance, oligarchies, and Italy.

The Renaissance Explore 93 books about the Renaissance
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Italy Explore 384 books about Italy