Heretics and heroes: how Renaissance artists and Reformation priests created our world

From the inimitable bestselling author Thomas Cahill, another popular history—this one focusing on how the innovations of the Renaissance and the Reformation changed the Western world. A truly revolutionary book. In Volume VI of his acclaimed Hinges of History series, Thomas Cahill guides us through the thrilling period of the Renaissance and the Reformation (the late fourteenth to the early seventeenth century), so full of innovation and cultural change that the Western world would not experience its like again until the twentieth century. Beginning with the continent-wide disaster of the Black Death, Cahill traces the many developments in European thought and experience that served both the new humanism of the Renaissance and the seemingly abrupt religious alterations of the increasingly radical Reformation. This is an age of the most sublime artistic and scientific adventure, but also of newly powerful princes and armies and of newly found courage, as many thousands refuse to bow their heads to the religious pieties of the past.  It is an era of just-discovered continents and previously unknown peoples. More than anything, it is a time of individuality in which a whole culture must achieve a new balance if the West is to continue. From Booklist From Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003) to his recent book on the flowering of the High Middle Ages, Cahill has proven that he can bring even the most obscure epochs back to life. In this sixth of seven projected volumes in his Hinges of History series, Cahill arrives at his most turbulent era yet: the Reformation and Renaissance. Replete with a larger-than-life cast of explorers, innovators, imperialists, and reformers, the era seems built for Cahill’s masterful storytelling. Although it is rigorously researched, the book abounds in the serendipities that make for the best fiction: Columbus discovers the New World by accident and Gutenberg modifies a winepress to print books. Even the tragic fall of Constantinople and the horrors of the bubonic plague yield unexpected opportunities. The text is delightfully sprinkled with clever notes and asides as well as dozens of illustrative images and poems. Heretics and Heroes is proof that truth is stranger than fiction—and that it can be just as entertaining. --Brett Beasley Review "The writing is crisp, conversational, and matched by very few non-fiction writers out there today. The great achievement of Heretics and Heroes is Cahill's seemingly effortless illumination of the Renaissance and the Reformation. I have learned a lot from what Cahill has done here." —James S. Shapiro, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, and author of Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? "Cahill cheerfully explains the enduring value of the Renaissance and Reformation movements to 21st century Western principles, injecting humor and a conversational style into well-written and easily accessible chapters centering on controversial issues and mesmerizing personalities ... Well-chosen illustrations and discreetly placed asides clarify his arguments ... Cahill writes passionately about the era’s transformational art, the unexpected benefits of the Black Plague, and the intellectual struggles over secular and papal power, resulting in an entertaining yet thought-provoking examination of Western civilization." —Publishers Weekly, starred review "Cahill sets his delightfully analytic mind to the major transformations prompted by the Renaissance and Reformation ... [he] makes it seem so simple to connect the dots, as the 14th through 16th centuries witnessed changes to every facet and walk of life--from the expulsion of the Moors in Spain to the emergence of nations and massive religious upheaval. The breadth of Cahill's knowledge and his jocular style of writing make for a remarkable book."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review