Pedagogical help

Dave Postles (pot@leicester.ac.uk)
Tue, 17 Oct 1995 08:56:34 +0100

This is in response to the request for suggested texts for a course in
Renaissance Europe. As a primary source collection, I have had good luck
with the Renaissance volume (volume 5) in the University of Chicago *Readings
in Western Civilization.* Unlike most primary source readers, this one
contains excerpts of *substantial* length, organized around major themes -
the Medieval background, The Social and Economic Structure of Italy, Humanism,
Arts and Letters, and Religious Reform. One short microstudy which might
help in elucidating women's roles is Gene Brucker's *Giovanni and Lusanna,*
which recounts a Florentine woman's efforts to make a secret marriage, which
she had been party to, legally binding (the guy, a wealthy merchant, wanted
to marry someone else).

Hope that helps. Now I have a question of my own: does anyone out there have
any *general* textbook recommendations for a course on Europe from 1610 to
the French Revolution? (Don't ask about the reason for the periodization; I
inherited it.) I haven't found anything to use as the basic text which
focuses on this period, or any reasonable approximation thereof.

Thank you in advance,

Michael Graham
Assistant Professor of History
University of Akron
r1mxg@vm1.cc.uakron.edu

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