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Title: The Renaissance: A Short History (Modern Library Chronicles) by Paul Johnson ISBN: 0-679-64086-X Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 22 August, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.08 (25 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: "A Renaissance Handbook"
Comment: In Paul Johnson's handbook-sized work on the Renaissance, he epitomizes all aspects of the brilliant age: the historical and economic, the rise in literary scholarship, art and architecture, and finally its dispersion, decline, and impact upon contemporary ideals. The many personalities that marked the spirit of the Renaissance are covered here as well with charm and uncanny brevity. Through Johnson's clear and compelling narrative, figures like Petrarch and Erasmus, Leonardo and Donatello, are all brought to life and resound with the insights and achievements that were the sole mark of their character. Paul Johnson's work is, on the other hand, recommended for individuals more inclined to the artistic rather than the literary side of the Renaissance. For he pays no attention at all to poets like Tasso and overall fails to provide any single illuminating analysis of the Renaissance authors' works-to even say that his treatment of their works is a summary would be a complete injustice. However, he does manage to paint a good picture of their lives and accomplishments, which will suffice for anyone not seeking to obtain an in-depth grasp of the literary milieu of the age. For the artist, the other three-fourths of the book will provide such a wealth of information on famous personages and their works, that even some of the most concentrated of artists will find more than enough information here. Overall this work is a good introduction to the Renaissance; its sets the tone and opens the door for further inquiry into an age of endless fascination and monumental erudition.
Rating: 2
Summary: Lack of pictures in a major drawback
Comment: I am quite surprised at how many great reviews this book has received. My only explanation for this is that the this author must attract readers who already have considerable historical background. As one who really wanted an introduction to this time period, I feel the book sped way too quickly through its specialized topics, while omitting important areas. (If you are going to make the book all about the artistic achievements of the Renaissance, why not at least mention the musical accomplishments of composers such as Josquin and Palestrina?)
I completely agree with the reviewer who felt that this was full of name-dropping without much depth. I felt that the book focused too much on artistic individuals without developing a sense of what Renaissance life was like for the everyday person.
Most importantly, it was very hard to appreciate all the works of the artists mentioned without any pictures. It was like reading a pamplet about all the works in a museum, without ever going into the musuem.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Nifty Little Book
Comment: First off I would just like to say that I generally don't like Paul Johnson. I don't like his conservative politics or his anglo-centrism. While I admit he wrote two great books -- MODERN TIMES and HISTORY OF THE JEWS, which I've read thrice and twice, respectively -- I don't rate his other books very highly at all, and there are quite a lot of them.
The second thing I had wanted to say is this: Pay no attention to the "Publisher's Weekly" review above because it's a pile of nonsense. The quote about Leonardo is a misquote. The actual words Johnson uses go like this: "There was not much warmth in him. He may have had homosexual inclinations." -- I mean, if you're going to quote somebody, please try to get it right. In addition, Johnson's remarks about neuroticism pertaining to Michelangelo was only part of a larger point that suggested ordinary categories of psychoanalytic thought failed to explain Michelangelo's genius, not that he wasn't neurotic. Also, Johnson does not single out Shakespeare, Chaucer, Kipling and Dickens as the only English writers of genius. He only suggests that, above all other English writers, they had inexplicable insight into the thought-processes of other human beings. Finally, the P.W. review says that "dates of birth and death abound," as if to suggest that Johnson's book is hardly more than that -- which is rubbish (if Johnson, on the other, hand omitted the dates, he would then have been guilty of the serious offenses of shoddy scholarship and confusing the hell out of the reader).
To address the book itself, Paul Johnson is a non-academic generalist in an era of academic specialists, and I don't think I have to explain the reasons why we need such people, now perhaps more than ever. His book is pithy and yet thorough. His insights are, for the most part, judicious and provocative. The material is well-organized, for in successive chapters he addresses the historic and economic background of the Renaissance, followed by Literature, Sculpture, Architecture, Painting and, finally, "The Spread and Decline of the Renaissance." For such a small book, there is really quite a lot of information. One could certainly do much worse for a general introduction to Renaissance culture.
My only significant quibble with the book is that Johnson is largely blind to the greatness of the late Renaissance phenomenon known as "Mannerism" (he even fails to mention El Greco's name!), which, knowing Johnson's ultra-conventionalism, is hardly surprising. For this reason I dread reading what he has to say about Modernism is his recently-published history of art.
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Title: Art: A New History by Paul Johnson ISBN: 0060530758 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: A History of the American People by Paul M. Johnson ISBN: 0060930349 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 March, 1999 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: A History of Christianity by Paul Johnson ISBN: 0684815036 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 1995 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Intellectuals by Paul M. Johnson ISBN: 0060916575 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 11 April, 1990 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Modern Times Revised Edition : World from the Twenties to the Nineties, The (Perennial Classics) by Paul M. Johnson ISBN: 0060935502 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 07 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
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