The Wiles lectures

"Counter Professor Hay provides a clear picture of what the Renaissance was, what it meant and how it spread. He shows the Renaissance as a growing and changing series of attitudes and ideas, rooted firmly in the general history of the period, and not as a static and isolated phenomenon. Most current ideas of the Italian Renaissance are derived from Burckhardt's Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, published in 1860. Professor Hay provides a completely fresh appraisal which goes back to the basic texts, to the great monuments of art and architecture, to the men - Boccaccio, Petrarch and the others - and their achievements: the essence of which historical movements are made. He has taken note of recent Italian scholarship and provides a fresh and readable account of one of the great epochs in European history. There is no other book in English, except the translation of Burckhardt, which embraces the political history of the Renaissance period as well as the history of art and ideas. The book will appeal to the general reader as well as to students of history and art. In this second edition, which has been revised and brought up to date by the author, a more ample treatment of the 'reception' of the Renaissance in England is given in the concluding chapter."

Eric Hobsbawm's brilliant enquiry into the question of nationalism won further acclaim for his 'colossal stature ...his incontrovertible excellence as an historian, and his authoritative and highly readable prose'. Recent events in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics have since reinforced the central importance of nationalism in the history of political evolution and upheaval. This second edition has been updated in the light of those events, with a final chapter addressing the impact of the dramatic changes that have taken place. It also includes additional maps to illustrate nationalities, languages and political divisions across Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.