The masterpiece of Britain's leading Renaissance scholar, winner of the Time-Life Silver Pen Award and The Royal Society of Literature Award, beautifully reissued in Harper Perennial.

The Civilisation of Europe in the Renaissance is the most ambitious achievement of Britain's leading Renaissance historian. John Hale has painted on a grand canvas an enthralling portrait of Europe and its civilisation at a moment when 'Europe' first became an entity in the minds of its inhabitants.

John Hale's Renaissance has no compartments. His range is universal. With astonishing range and subtlety of learning, he paints a gigantic picture of the age, enlivened by a multiplicity of themes, people and ideas. It contains memorable descriptions of painting, sculpture, poetry, architecture and music, but Hale is not simply concerned with the arts. He examines the dramatic changes during the period in religion, politics, economics and global discoveries. And throughout his book he approaches the art of war and the art created for princes from the point of view of their impact on the imaginations, sensibilities and lives of ordinary people.