Rating: 
Summary: Simply brilliant
Review: A splendid consideration of a complex and fascinating subject. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Vintage Johnson--Brilliant
Review: A superb work...spellbinding in clarity, originality, insight.I have read all Mr. J's books...and he is truly one of the great interpretive historians of our times. Only wish I had an autograped copy to give my kids. Robert E. Fuisz, MD
Rating:
Summary: wonderful
Review: Eminent historian Paul Johnson did a great job with this little book. The information he offers about the Renaissance is...informative...& interesting. He knows so much. His writing in this book anyway is completely readable, flowing from fact to fact. Not a single word misfires.
Rating:
Summary: wonderful
Review: Eminent historian Paul Johnson did a great job with this little book. The information he offers about the Renaissance is...informative...& interesting. He knows so much. His writing in this book anyway is completely readable, flowing from fact to fact. Not a single word misfires.
Rating: 
Summary: A Nifty Little Book
Review: First off I would just like to say that I generally don't like Paul Johnson. I don't like his conservative politics or his anglo-centrism. While I admit he wrote two great books -- MODERN TIMES and HISTORY OF THE JEWS, which I've read thrice and twice, respectively -- I don't rate his other books very highly at all, and there are quite a lot of them. The second thing I had wanted to say is this: Pay no attention to the "Publisher's Weekly" review above because it's a pile of nonsense. The quote about Leonardo is a misquote. The actual words Johnson uses go like this: "There was not much warmth in him. He may have had homosexual inclinations." -- I mean, if you're going to quote somebody, please try to get it right. In addition, Johnson's remarks about neuroticism pertaining to Michelangelo was only part of a larger point that suggested ordinary categories of psychoanalytic thought failed to explain Michelangelo's genius, not that he wasn't neurotic. Also, Johnson does not single out Shakespeare, Chaucer, Kipling and Dickens as the only English writers of genius. He only suggests that, above all other English writers, they had inexplicable insight into the thought-processes of other human beings. Finally, the P.W. review says that "dates of birth and death abound," as if to suggest that Johnson's book is hardly more than that -- which is rubbish (if Johnson, on the other, hand omitted the dates, he would then have been guilty of the serious offenses of shoddy scholarship and confusing the hell out of the reader). To address the book itself, Paul Johnson is a non-academic generalist in an era of academic specialists, and I don't think I have to explain the reasons why we need such people, now perhaps more than ever. His book is pithy and yet thorough. His insights are, for the most part, judicious and provocative. The material is well-organized, for in successive chapters he addresses the historic and economic background of the Renaissance, followed by Literature, Sculpture, Architecture, Painting and, finally, "The Spread and Decline of the Renaissance." For such a small book, there is really quite a lot of information. One could certainly do much worse for a general introduction to Renaissance culture. My only significant quibble with the book is that Johnson is largely blind to the greatness of the late Renaissance phenomenon known as "Mannerism" (he even fails to mention El Greco's name!), which, knowing Johnson's ultra-conventionalism, is hardly surprising. For this reason I dread reading what he has to say about Modernism is his recently-published history of art.
Rating:
Summary: A Nifty Little Book
Review: First off I would just like to say that I generally don't like Paul Johnson. I don't like his conservative politics or his anglo-centrism. While I admit he wrote two great books -- MODERN TIMES and HISTORY OF THE JEWS, which I've read thrice and twice, respectively -- I don't rate his other books very highly at all, and there are quite a lot of them. The second thing I had wanted to say is this: Pay no attention to the "Publisher's Weekly" review above because it's a pile of nonsense. The quote about Leonardo is a misquote. The actual words Johnson uses go like this: "There was not much warmth in him. He may have had homosexual inclinations." -- I mean, if you're going to quote somebody, please try to get it right. In addition, Johnson's remarks about neuroticism pertaining to Michelangelo was only part of a larger point that suggested ordinary categories of psychoanalytic thought failed to explain Michelangelo's genius, not that he wasn't neurotic. Also, Johnson does not single out Shakespeare, Chaucer, Kipling and Dickens as the only English writers of genius. He only suggests that, above all other English writers, they had inexplicable insight into the thought-processes of other human beings. Finally, the P.W. review says that "dates of birth and death abound," as if to suggest that Johnson's book is hardly more than that -- which is rubbish (if Johnson, on the other, hand omitted the dates, he would then have been guilty of the serious offenses of shoddy scholarship and confusing the hell out of the reader). To address the book itself, Paul Johnson is a non-academic generalist in an era of academic specialists, and I don't think I have to explain the reasons why we need such people, now perhaps more than ever. His book is pithy and yet thorough. His insights are, for the most part, judicious and provocative. The material is well-organized, for in successive chapters he addresses the historic and economic background of the Renaissance, followed by Literature, Sculpture, Architecture, Painting and, finally, "The Spread and Decline of the Renaissance." For such a small book, there is really quite a lot of information. One could certainly do much worse for a general introduction to Renaissance culture. My only significant quibble with the book is that Johnson is largely blind to the greatness of the late Renaissance phenomenon known as "Mannerism" (he even fails to mention El Greco's name!), which, knowing Johnson's ultra-conventionalism, is hardly surprising. For this reason I dread reading what he has to say about Modernism is his recently-published history of art.
Rating:
Summary: Good, and concise
Review: I am a layman with regard to the arts, but has a keen interest in it, and I thoroughly enjoyed this little work by Paul Johnson. As always he is opinionated, sometimes infuriatingly so (I notice from the formal reviews that this does not endear him to academic historians), but that prevents his writing from being dull and academic. So what if he thinks that England had produced only four authors possessing of true genius- it's his opinion and he is entitled to state it. In this book Johnson gives a concise overview of the Renaissance: why it happened, and the major figures who contributed to this re-birth of painting, sculpture, etc. And he keeps it short, mercifully- it was nice to be able to finish a Johnson in a few days instead of a few months. Above all, after reading this I want to re-visit Florence, the centre of the Renaissance, with this book in hand, looking for the wonderful art works produced by the masters. And I am sure that is what Johnson hoped for when writing this book, that it would make readers excited about the art of the Renaissance.
Rating:
Summary: Good, and concise
Review: I am a layman with regard to the arts, but has a keen interest in it, and I thoroughly enjoyed this little work by Paul Johnson. As always he is opinionated, sometimes infuriatingly so (I notice from the formal reviews that this does not endear him to academic historians), but that prevents his writing from being dull and academic. So what if he thinks that England had produced only four authors possessing of true genius- it's his opinion and he is entitled to state it. In this book Johnson gives a concise overview of the Renaissance: why it happened, and the major figures who contributed to this re-birth of painting, sculpture, etc. And he keeps it short, mercifully- it was nice to be able to finish a Johnson in a few days instead of a few months. Above all, after reading this I want to re-visit Florence, the centre of the Renaissance, with this book in hand, looking for the wonderful art works produced by the masters. And I am sure that is what Johnson hoped for when writing this book, that it would make readers excited about the art of the Renaissance.
Rating: 
Summary: Lack of pictures in a major drawback
Review: I am quite surprised at how many great reviews this book has received. My only explanation for this is that the this author must attract readers who already have considerable historical background. As one who really wanted an introduction to this time period, I feel the book sped way too quickly through its specialized topics, while omitting important areas. (If you are going to make the book all about the artistic achievements of the Renaissance, why not at least mention the musical accomplishments of composers such as Josquin and Palestrina?) I completely agree with the reviewer who felt that this was full of name-dropping without much depth. I felt that the book focused too much on artistic individuals without developing a sense of what Renaissance life was like for the everyday person. Most importantly, it was very hard to appreciate all the works of the artists mentioned without any pictures. It was like reading a pamplet about all the works in a museum, without ever going into the musuem.
Rating:
Summary: Lack of pictures in a major drawback
Review: I am quite surprised at how many great reviews this book has received. My only explanation for this is that the this author must attract readers who already have considerable historical background. As one who really wanted an introduction to this time period, I feel the book sped way too quickly through its specialized topics, while omitting important areas. (If you are going to make the book all about the artistic achievements of the Renaissance, why not at least mention the musical accomplishments of composers such as Josquin and Palestrina?) I completely agree with the reviewer who felt that this was full of name-dropping without much depth. I felt that the book focused too much on artistic individuals without developing a sense of what Renaissance life was like for the everyday person. Most importantly, it was very hard to appreciate all the works of the artists mentioned without any pictures. It was like reading a pamplet about all the works in a museum, without ever going into the musuem.
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