New Worlds, Ancient Texts

The Power of Tradition and the Shock of Discovery

ISBN 9780674618763

Publication date: 03/15/1995

Describing an era of exploration during the Renaissance that went far beyond geographic bounds, this book shows how the evidence of the New World shook the foundations of the old, upsetting the authority of the ancient texts that had guided Europeans so far afield. What Anthony Grafton recounts is a war of ideas fought by mariners, scientists, publishers, and rulers over a period of 150 years. In colorful vignettes, published debates, and copious illustrations, we see these men and their contemporaries trying to make sense of their discoveries as they sometimes confirm, sometimes contest, and finally displace traditional notions of the world beyond Europe.

Praise

Grafton’s book is about the identity of the Americas—an identity hewn out of intellectual conflict, just as much as military or political conflict.

—David McKitterick, New York Times Book Review
In his eloquent disquisition…Grafton demonstrates his mastery of the world of the Renaissance text and his skills as a historian of scholarship, scholarly processes, and intellectual debates.

—Larry Ceplair, Los Angeles Times Book Review
Beautifully presented and delightful to read. Grafton’s prose has a rare combination of qualities, smooth-flowing and hard-hitting… The concentrated power, the broad erudition, the impeccable aim which characterize Grafton’s vignettes are enviable.

—Felipe Fernández-Armesto, London Review of Books
Grafton is massively erudite and scrupulous as a scholar; at the same time he has command of a relaxed narrative style: his book about the reconfiguration of knowledge in Renaissance Europe is aimed at the general reader and no doubt finds its mark.

—Mary Baine Campbell, Arion

Authors

Anthony Grafton is the author of The Footnote, Defenders of the Text, Forgers and Critics, and Inky Fingers, among other books. The Henry Putnam University Professor of History and the Humanities at Princeton University, he writes regularly for the New York Review of Books.
April Shelford is a graduate student in history at Princeton University.
Nancy Siraisi is Distinguished Professor of History at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.