Overview

Imprisoned in the Tower of London after the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, Sir Walter Ralegh spent seven years producing his massive History of the World.Created with the aid of a library of more than five hundred books that he was allowed to keep in his quarters, this incredible work of English vernacular would become a best seller, with nearly twenty editions, abridgments, and continuations issued in the years that followed. Nicholas Popper uses Ralegh'sHistoryas a touchstone in this lively exploration of the culture of history writing and historical thinking in the late Renaissance. From Popper we learn why early modern Europeans ascribed heightened value to the study of the past and how scholars and statesmen began to see historical expertise as not just a foundation for political practice and theory, but as a means of advancing their power in the courts and councils of contemporary Europe. The rise of historical scholarship during this period encouraged the circulation of its methods to other disciplines, transforming Europe's intellectual-and political-regimes. More than a mere study of Ralegh's History of the World, Popper's book reveals how the methods that historians devised to illuminate the past structured the dynamics of early modernity in Europe and England.

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9780226675008

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In this learned, lively, and original book, Nicholas Popper offers a detailed and penetrating analysis of Walter Ralegh's historical ideas and practices. At the same time, he recreates the larger world of Renaissance historical culture, and he sets Ralegh's work into its context in a way that brilliantly illuminates both. <br>--Anthony Grafton author of Worlds Made by Words: Scholarship and Community in the Modern West

This is historical scholarship at its most edifying and satisfying. Nicholas Popper paints a vivid picture of Ralegh as explorer not of distant lands but of remote times, putting a staggering range of ancient texts to the service of pressing needs--personal, national, and international. An exemplary history of an exemplary history. <br>--William Sherman author of Used Books: Marking Readers in Renaissance England

Sir Walter Ralegh took five hundred books with him when he went to prison in the Tower of London. While confined he used that library to write a history of the world that has been read ever since. Nicholas Popper imaginatively followed in Ralegh's intellectual footsteps to produce the subtlest and most in-depth analysis of the History that has yet been written. History mattered in early modern England and this book shows us why. --Peter C. Mancall University of Southern California

Author Information

Nicholas Popper is assistant professor in the Department of History at the College of William and Mary.

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