European University Institute Library

Renaissance military memoirs, war, history, and identity, 1450-1600, Yuval Noah Harari

eng

index present

non fiction

Renaissance military memoirs

electronic resource

dictionaries

213373339

Yuval Noah Harari

Cambridge Social Sciences eBooks

war, history, and identity, 1450-1600

This is a study of autobiographical writings of Renaissance soldiers. It outlines the ways in which they reflect Renaissance cultural, political and historical consciousness, with a particular focus on conceptions of war, history, selfhood and identity. A vivid picture of Renaissance military life and military mentality emerges, which sheds light on the attitude of Renaissance soldiers both towards contemporary historical developments such as the rise of the modern state, and towards such issues as comradeship, women, honor, violence, and death. Comparison with similar medieval and twentieth-century material highlights the differences in the Renaissance soldier's understanding of war and of human experience.--, Provided by publisher

pt. I. Memoirists as eyewitnesses and individuals -- 1. Preliminary enquiry : the appearance of authors of protagonists -- 2. Truth and eyewitnessing -- 3. Individualism -- pt. II. The reality of renaissance military memoirs -- 4. The experience of war -- 5. War as a phenomenon and an image -- 6. Tangibility and abstraction -- pt. III. Things worthy of remembrance -- 7. Commemoration -- 8. Causality -- 9. Effacing the difference between history and lifestory -- pt. IV. The politics of renaissance military memoirs -- 10. Noble independence and the politics of causality -- 11. The politics of exclusion -- App. A. Were renaissance military memoirs a novel phenomenon? -- App. B. The memoirists