Describes the social and economic structure of city life during the Renaissance, from about 1400 to 1600, explaining how cities varied in government, commerce, population, and culture, and how they influenced the shaping of European civilization.

"Through networks of trails and rivers inland and established ocean routes across the seas, seventeenth-century Virginians were connected to a vibrant Atlantic world. They routinely traded with adjacent Native Americans and received ships from England, the Netherlands, and other English and Dutch colonies, while maintaining less direct connections to Africa and to French and Spanish colonies. Their Atlantic world emerged from the movement of goods...

"Roman Britain has given us an enormous number of artefacts. Yet few books available today deal with its whole material culture as represented by these artefacts. This introduction, aimed primarily at students and general readers, begins by explaining the process of identifying objects of any period or material. Themed chapters, written by experts in their particular area of interest, then discuss artefacts from the point of view of their use. The...

"Art in Britain 1660-1815 presents the first social history of British art from the period known as the long 18th century, and offers a fresh and challenging look at the major developments in painting, drawing, and printmaking that took place during this period. It describes how an embryonic London art world metamorphosed into a flourishing community of native and immigrant practitioners, whose efforts ultimately led to the rise of a British School...

"Jeremiah Gridley (1702-1767) is considered 'the greatest New England lawyer of his generation, ' yet we know little about him. Most of his renown is a product of the fame of his students, most notably John Adams. Gridley deserves more. He was an active participant in the writs of assistance trial and the Stamp Act controversy, and as a leader of the Boston bar, an editor, speculator, legislator, and politician, his life touched and was touched by...

In Latin America, now revised and enlarged, J. Fred Rippy presents a total history of the people of Latin America--politically, economically, and culturally--from the splendor-filled days of the Incan and Aztec empires, through the long formative years of Spanish and Portuguese colonization, to the present twenty republics which are developing as competitive members of the world economic and political community. He indicates how well each political...

The intermixture in our own time of European, or Western, civilization with non-Western civilizations and cultures is producing a new, global civilization. It is the purpose of this book to tell the story of Western civilization from the "Dark Ages" when Europe emerged as a cultural entity up to the transmutation of Western civilization in the 20th century. It is not a story of continual progress. Throughout its history the European world has experienced...