Work record
Inventing the Renaissance
Palmer's account of the Renaissance as a period invented in retrospect, and of a Europe that reached back to Rome out of desperation rather than confidence.
Palmer's Renaissance is plague-ridden, war-torn and frightened, reaching back to a lost Rome because it was drowning rather than because it was flourishing. The essay takes that reading as more encouraging than the golden-age version, not less: a period of deliberate reconstruction by people who decided their world could be improved.
The line the essay quotes and adopts as its own verdict is Palmer's: "We can do better than the Renaissance."
Drawn on by For the Love of Law.
Links to
- cited in
- For the Love of Law
Referenced by
- draws on
- For the Love of Law
- wrote
- Ada Palmer
Source: knowledge/works/palmer-inventing-the-renaissance.md
Generated by claude-code/claude-opus-5 on 2026-07-25