Summary a history of western society volume 2 14th edition 9781319343712 2024

Summary a history of western society volume 2 14th edition 9781319343712 2024 1 / 4

Summary a history of western society volume 2 14th edition 9781319343712 2024 2 / 4

Summary a history of western society volume 2 14th edition 9781319343712 2024

Chapter 14: European Exploration and Conquest, 1450–1650

14.1 European society transforms during Renaissance Between 1450 and 1650 European society underwent accelerated transformation. The medieval order — rooted in feudal loyalty, agrarian labor, and rigid hierarchy — gradually yielded to new patterns of wealth, learning, and mobility. Trade networks expanded, banking systems matured, and urban populations grew. Artisans, merchants, and financiers gained authority previously reserved for nobles and clergy. A society once tied to land and lordship began to depend on contracts, markets, and profit.

This shift was visible in everyday structures of life:

currency replaced barter in most commercial regions households practised bookkeeping and credit exchange guilds standardized labour, skill, apprenticeship mobility increased as workers moved for wages and opportunity Prosperity also changed mentality. Europeans increasingly viewed skill, innovation, and individual achievement as pathways to status. The ideal of the self-made citizen emerged alongside a still- present aristocratic elite. Education expanded beyond monasteries to lay schools. Literacy rose, allowing citizens to read legal contracts, devotional texts, scientific treatises, and eventually printed news. The printing press accelerated this process, transforming the circulation of ideas almost overnight.This transformation was not only material but intellectual. Europeans began to study the world directly — measuring, observing, recording. Natural philosophy, engineering, perspective drawing, and navigational science developed because society valued inquiry. The Renaissance was therefore not merely a revival of art; it was a restructuring of how people thought, traded, governed, and imagined possibility. Europe moved from local to continental horizons, preparing itself — willingly or not — for global expansion.

14.2 Urban culture expands in Italy and beyond The heart of this transformation was the city. Italy’s city-states — Venice, Florence, Genoa, Milan, Rome — functioned as commercial republics or oligarchies, wealthy from Mediterranean shipping, banking, and manufacturing. Their governments hired diplomats, maintained armies, and competed for prestige through artistic patronage. Palaces, cathedrals, universities, and public squares became markers of civic identity.Urban culture was dynamic and demanding. Densely populated streets housed bankers beside blacksmiths, scholars beside sailors. Wealth encouraged patronage; patronage encouraged creativity.Competition between families and guilds fueled innovation in architecture, fresco cycles, sculpture, and literature. Public life was theatrical and political, filled with processions, markets, debates, and negotiation. 3 / 4

Summary a history of western society volume 2 14th edition 9781319343712 2024 Italy led, but the pattern spread outward. Antwerp’s warehouses rivalled Venice; London became a port of global reach; Paris and Seville emerged as cultural and administrative capitals. The printing press allowed books to circulate between cities, creating networks of knowledge stretching across Europe. Universities multiplied, courts sponsored artists and musicians, and workshops trained generations of skilled painters and goldsmiths.

Urban culture promoted a new social rhythm:

• fast communication and shared public space • literacy as a civic asset rather than elite privilege • markets as centers of both goods and ideas • identity shaped by profession, not only birth The city made Renaissance culture visible, audible, and communal. Here Europe learned to think collectively — and competitively — about art, politics, technology, and faith. Urban dynamism created the mental architecture of modernity.

14.3 Humanism influences education art political thinking Humanism formed the intellectual core of Renaissance society. Scholars recovered ancient texts in Latin and Greek, copied them, translated them, and debated them. Classical thought encouraged attention to rhetoric, logic, ethics, and historical inquiry — disciplines grounded in reason rather than authority alone. Humanism emphasized the dignity of the individual, the value of earthly experience, and the ability of human intellect to understand and shape the world.

Education was transformed as schools adopted humanist curriculum:

grammar and rhetoric before theology history and moral philosophy as civic training mathematics, geometry, and astronomy for applied reasoning Greek and Latin for original textual understanding Students were taught not merely to absorb knowledge, but to question, compare, and persuade. In this environment argument became an intellectual skill and disagreement became a catalyst for learning.Humanism reshaped art just as powerfully. Painters studied anatomy to broaden naturalism; sculptors revived contrapposto and classical proportion; architects referenced arches, domes, and balanced symmetry. Frescoes and canvases displayed emotional realism, depth through linear perspective, and landscapes rendered with scientific observation. Portraits captured personality, status, even introspection — evidence of rising individual consciousness.Political thoughts also changed. Instead of grounding authority solely in divine lineage, thinkers observed how states operated: armies, taxation, commerce, diplomacy. They examined ambition, power, reputation, and the fragility of peace. Secular governance slowly gained legitimacy as rulers justified authority through law, administration, and military capability rather than inheritance alone.

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