The classic account of the development of diplomacy is Garrett Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy (1955, reprinted 1988); the subject is also discussed in Joycelyne G. Russell, Peacemaking in the Renaissance (1986). Michael Mallett, Mercenaries and Their Masters: Warfare in Renaissance Italy (1974), is a study of war in the Renaissance. Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Florence (1965, reprinted 1984), provides the political and cultural context of the thought of two leading Renaissance political scholars. J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (1975), traces the Renaissance heritage to modern times. Sebastian de Grazia, Machiavelli in Hell (1989), is a fresh, lively intellectual biography of the great Florentine. Science and technology
Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early Modern Europe, 2 vol. (1979), and The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (1983), make a strong case for the revolutionary impact of Renaissance print technology upon culture. The concept of a “scientific revolution” is upheld in such standard works as Herbert Butterfield, The Origins of Modern Science: 1300–1800, rev. ed. (1957, reprinted 1982); I. Bernard Cohen, From Leonardo to Lavoisier, 1450–1800 (1980); and A. Rupert Hall, The Revolution in Science, 1500–1750, 3rd ed. (1983); while the continuities with medieval science are stressed in A.C. Crombie, Medieval and Early Modern Science, 2nd rev. ed. (1959, reissued 1967). Feminist theorists have made some influential contributions to revisionist perspectives deploring the “triumphalism” with which scientific advance has been treated: for example, Evelyn Fox Keller, Reflections on Gender and Science (1985); Margaret Jacobs and James Jacobs, The Cultural Meaning of the Scientific Revolution (1988); and Londa Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex: Women in the Origins of Modern Science (1989). The Renaissance outside Italy
New areas of investigation in social history, including the history of the lower classes, women, the family, and popular religion, are exemplified in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, The Peasants of Languedoc (1974; originally published in French, 1966); Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost: Further Explored, 3rd. ed. (1984); Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (1975, reissued 1987); Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (1978, reprinted 1988); Richard Kieckhefer, European Witch Trials: Their Foundations in Popular and Learned Culture, 1300–1500 (1976); Steven Ozment, When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe (1983); Joseph Klaits, Servants of Satan: The Age of the Witch Hunts (1985); and Brian P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (1987).
In religious history there has been a tendency to reconstruct the bridges between the late medieval and Reformation piety and thought. Among the most influential examples of this effort are Heiko Augustinus Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism (1963, reissued 1983); and Heiko Augustinus Oberman (ed.), Forerunners of the Reformation: The Shape of Late Medieval Thought (1966, reissued 1981). Other important studies include Steven E. Ozment (ed.), The Reformation in Medieval Perspective (1971); and Thomas N. Tentler, Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation (1977). Another, not necessarily contradictory, tendency has been that of seeing the history of late medieval and Renaissance religion on its own terms, rather than as the prelude to the Reformation; this approach is taken by Charles Trinkaus and Heiko Augustinus Oberman (eds.), The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion (1974); and Richard Kieckhefer, Unquiet Souls: Fourteenth-Century Saints and Their Religious Milieu (1984). An original and valuable, if sometimes debatable, overview is John Bossy, Christianity in the West, 1400–1700 (1985). Donald Weinstein The emergence of modern Europe
The economic backgound is discussed in a variety of studies. Carlo M. Cipolla, Before the Industrial Revolution: European Society and Economy, 1000–1700, 2nd ed. (1980; originally published in Italian, 1974), offers a treatment of the economy focusing not so much on history as on social structures. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System, 3 vol. (1974–89), covers the period from the 16th to the mid-19th century, emphasizing spatial division of the early capitalistic world among core areas, semiperipheries, and peripheries. Another broad, rich, and learned reconstruction of the world of early capitalism is offered in Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century, 3 vol. (1982–84; originally published in French, 1979).
Comprehensive works include Rondo Cameron, A Concise Economic History of the World: From Paleolithic Times to the Present (1989); Harry A. Miskimin, The Economy of Later Renaissance Europe, 1460–1600 (1977), stressing concepts of law as a critical factor in economic development; E.E. Rich and C.H. Wilson (eds.), The Economy of Expanding Europe in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1967); Jan De Vries, Economy of Europe in an Age of Crisis, 1600–1750 (1976), exploring the 17th-century unraveling of the 16th-century world, and European Urbanization, 1500–1800 (1984), a broader survey; Witold Kula, An Economic Theory of the Feudal System: Towards a Model of the Polish Economy, 1500–1800, new ed. (1976, reissued 1987; originally published in Polish, 1962), an analysis of a particular 16th-century economy; and Piero Camporesi, Bread of Dreams: Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Europe (1989; originally published in Italian, 1980), an exploration of malnutrition with an impressive picture of some unpalatable food and the symbolism of its consumption.
Important demographic studies are Josiah Cox Russell, The Control of Late Ancient and Medieval Population (1985), a historical study of European communities; and E.A. Wrigley and R.S. Schofield, The Population History of England, 1541–1871: A Reconstruction (1981), utilizing new techniques of reconstruction and backward projection of census data.
Studies of protoindustrialization include Peter Kriedte et al., Industrialization Before Industrialization: Rural Industry in the Genesis of Capitalism (1981; originally published in German, 1977), in a German context; John U. Nef, Industry and Government in France and England, 1540–1640 (1940, reprinted 1968), still informative and focusing on the interaction of power; and Paul Sweezy et al., The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism (1976), a collection of Marxist debates as to what capitalism really was and when it began.