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The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World
The creator of the hit podcast series Tides of History and Fall of Rome explores the four explosive decades between 1490 and 1530, bringing to life the dramatic and deeply human story of how the West was reborn. In the bestselling tradition of The Swerve and A Distant Mirror , The Verge tells the story of a period that marked a decisive turning point for both European and world history. Here, author Patrick Wyman examines two complementary and contradictory sides of the same historical coin: the world-altering implications of the developments of printed mass media, extreme taxation, exploitative globalization, humanistic learning, gunpowder warfare, and mass religious conflict in the long term, and their intensely disruptive consequences in the short-term.
As told through the lives of ten real people—from famous figures like Christopher Columbus and wealthy banker Jakob Fugger to a ruthless small-time merchant and a one-armed mercenary captain— The Verge illustrates how their lives, and the times in which they lived, set the stage for an unprecedented globalized future.
Over an intense forty-year period, the seeds for the so-called "Great Divergence" between Western Europe and the rest of the globe would be planted. From Columbus's voyage across the Atlantic to Martin Luther's sparking the Protestant Reformation, the foundations of our own, recognizably modern world came into being.
For the past 500 years, historians, economists, and the policy-oriented have argued which of these individual developments best explains the West's rise from backwater periphery to global dominance. As The Verge presents it, however, the answer is far more nuanced.
As told through the lives of ten real people—from famous figures like Christopher Columbus and wealthy banker Jakob Fugger to a ruthless small-time merchant and a one-armed mercenary captain— The Verge illustrates how their lives, and the times in which they lived, set the stage for an unprecedented globalized future.
Over an intense forty-year period, the seeds for the so-called "Great Divergence" between Western Europe and the rest of the globe would be planted. From Columbus's voyage across the Atlantic to Martin Luther's sparking the Protestant Reformation, the foundations of our own, recognizably modern world came into being.
For the past 500 years, historians, economists, and the policy-oriented have argued which of these individual developments best explains the West's rise from backwater periphery to global dominance. As The Verge presents it, however, the answer is far more nuanced.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published July 20, 2021
About the author
Patrick Wyman
4 books134 followersPatrick Wyman is the creator of the hit podcast series "Tides of History" and "Fall of Rome" which explore the four explosive decades between 1490 and 1530, bringing to life the dramatic and deeply human story of how the West was reborn.
Patrick Wyman holds a PhD in history from the University of Southern California. He previously worked as a sports journalist, covering mixed martial arts and boxing from 2013 to 2018. His work has been featured in Deadspin, The Washington Post, Bleacher Report, and others.
Patrick Wyman holds a PhD in history from the University of Southern California. He previously worked as a sports journalist, covering mixed martial arts and boxing from 2013 to 2018. His work has been featured in Deadspin, The Washington Post, Bleacher Report, and others.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 270 reviews
May 1, 2022
I am surprised by the positive reviews. This book had potential for me, since it’s a very interesting period of history, and I liked the idea of a book with mine portraits of key or representative figures of the age from across Europe. I wanted to like it but mostly ended disappointed with this as a work of history.
That said, the subject matter is great and this is a readable introduction to the period and some of its notable figures. This can fit the purpose of beach read + you want to fill in your sense of early modern European history.
Shortcomings of the book:
1. This prose should not have made it past the editor. As is often the case, a casual style is actually a mask for sloppy thinking or sloppy scholarship. The ability to flush out details is absent: for example, at one point in the narrative Cannoy “struck a deal” with the Pope, but the HRE troops sack Rome anyway. Sloppy language means I have no idea what actually happened, but vaguely sounds interesting and like something which is worth a sentence or two. Belabored scene-setting at the beginning of each chapter. Lots of poor style… “key epicenter”, etc.
2. As far as I could tell no original research was done to write this book. The appendix cites only secondary sources. Certain chapters, especially the one on John Heritage, appear to be a short recapitulation of 1 other book. I did not like that the author buried credit to the real scholar in an appendix footnote.
3. The book is structurally maladroit. The 9 individual biographies fail as character portrayals (level of psychological insight is low). They blend textbook history with biography, while occasionally trying to tie in the theme of financialization. I did not find the “big history” argument at the end, that 1490-1530 was some kind of pivot, and that you could trace the industrial revolution / the global divergence of the west of the 20th century, to this 40 year period in particular (any more than any other period) or to the theme of financial credit institutions in Europe (any more than several other contenders for role of “key factor in the West’s rise). So the over wrought argument was neither particularly interesting nor particularly well argued.
That said, the subject matter is great and this is a readable introduction to the period and some of its notable figures. This can fit the purpose of beach read + you want to fill in your sense of early modern European history.
Shortcomings of the book:
1. This prose should not have made it past the editor. As is often the case, a casual style is actually a mask for sloppy thinking or sloppy scholarship. The ability to flush out details is absent: for example, at one point in the narrative Cannoy “struck a deal” with the Pope, but the HRE troops sack Rome anyway. Sloppy language means I have no idea what actually happened, but vaguely sounds interesting and like something which is worth a sentence or two. Belabored scene-setting at the beginning of each chapter. Lots of poor style… “key epicenter”, etc.
2. As far as I could tell no original research was done to write this book. The appendix cites only secondary sources. Certain chapters, especially the one on John Heritage, appear to be a short recapitulation of 1 other book. I did not like that the author buried credit to the real scholar in an appendix footnote.
3. The book is structurally maladroit. The 9 individual biographies fail as character portrayals (level of psychological insight is low). They blend textbook history with biography, while occasionally trying to tie in the theme of financialization. I did not find the “big history” argument at the end, that 1490-1530 was some kind of pivot, and that you could trace the industrial revolution / the global divergence of the west of the 20th century, to this 40 year period in particular (any more than any other period) or to the theme of financial credit institutions in Europe (any more than several other contenders for role of “key factor in the West’s rise). So the over wrought argument was neither particularly interesting nor particularly well argued.
September 20, 2021
I first came across Wyman via his excellent podcast, "The Fall of Rome", which I still recommend to people as the best detailed synthesis of current thinking on that very complex subject. This young scholar honed his highly engaging style in each episode of that podcast series and has since applied it to late medieval and early modern history and now to prehistory in his newer, broad-ranging podcast "Tides of History". Wyman's formula is to begin each episode with a detailed day-in-the-life vignette focused on an individual or episode that epitomises the topic of the episode and makes the history or archaeology to be discussed concrete and real, before giving the wider context of evidence, scholarship and interpretation. He often returns to the people or places in the opening vignette during the episode to connect the concepts he's explaining.
It's a relatively simple formula, but it works well and makes his podcasts both accessible and also remarkably comprehensive. So it's not surprising that he has adapted and used a version of it in this, his first book. The Verge draws on a number of episodes from "Tides of History" focused on several key decades in the transition from the Late Medieval to the Early Modern Era. His subtitle uses the rather old fashioned and heavily value-laden word "Renaissance", but the book avoids the gushing about this period as some kind of golden age and a break with the dismal medieval past that we see in far weaker recent books, like Stephen Greenblatt's absurd but absurdly popular book The Swerve (2011). Unlike Greenblatt, Wyman is an actual historian and interested in presenting balanced and judicious history, not ideologically driven nonsense. So his narrative emphasises continuity over revolution, and he is careful to note the deep medieval roots of everything he describes.
But he also details a remarkable confluence of developments in the period between Columbus' first voyage (1492) and the sack of Rome (1527) that came together to change the western world dramatically. Exploration, reformation, printing and finance all had medieval origins but he shows how these dramatic decades brought them together in a way that set the foundations for the expansion of Europe and the establishment of the world we know. The individuals he focuses on range from the well known (Luther) and high born (Ferdinand and Isabella) to lowly (English wool entrepreneur John Heritage) or less than respectable (mercenary captain Götz von Berlichingen), but he ties them all together into a story that encompasses a vast amount of information. His book also does something that I tend to regard as a sign of good historical analysis - time and again it returns to money and economics as the key driver of almost everything.
The endnotes are extensive, useful and can send a reader in a dozen interesting directions, which is another sign of good popular history. This is an engaging and carefully judicious work and is exactly the way good popular history should be written. It's scholarly without being dry and it's interesting without the gimmickry that pervades too much pop history these days (especially that plague of "subtitle books" - the ones called things like X - How One Thing Changed the Whole of History). Hopefully this will be first of many books by an excellent new history writer.
It's a relatively simple formula, but it works well and makes his podcasts both accessible and also remarkably comprehensive. So it's not surprising that he has adapted and used a version of it in this, his first book. The Verge draws on a number of episodes from "Tides of History" focused on several key decades in the transition from the Late Medieval to the Early Modern Era. His subtitle uses the rather old fashioned and heavily value-laden word "Renaissance", but the book avoids the gushing about this period as some kind of golden age and a break with the dismal medieval past that we see in far weaker recent books, like Stephen Greenblatt's absurd but absurdly popular book The Swerve (2011). Unlike Greenblatt, Wyman is an actual historian and interested in presenting balanced and judicious history, not ideologically driven nonsense. So his narrative emphasises continuity over revolution, and he is careful to note the deep medieval roots of everything he describes.
But he also details a remarkable confluence of developments in the period between Columbus' first voyage (1492) and the sack of Rome (1527) that came together to change the western world dramatically. Exploration, reformation, printing and finance all had medieval origins but he shows how these dramatic decades brought them together in a way that set the foundations for the expansion of Europe and the establishment of the world we know. The individuals he focuses on range from the well known (Luther) and high born (Ferdinand and Isabella) to lowly (English wool entrepreneur John Heritage) or less than respectable (mercenary captain Götz von Berlichingen), but he ties them all together into a story that encompasses a vast amount of information. His book also does something that I tend to regard as a sign of good historical analysis - time and again it returns to money and economics as the key driver of almost everything.
The endnotes are extensive, useful and can send a reader in a dozen interesting directions, which is another sign of good popular history. This is an engaging and carefully judicious work and is exactly the way good popular history should be written. It's scholarly without being dry and it's interesting without the gimmickry that pervades too much pop history these days (especially that plague of "subtitle books" - the ones called things like X - How One Thing Changed the Whole of History). Hopefully this will be first of many books by an excellent new history writer.
June 2, 2023
As long as I can remember, the year 1500 has been used as a dividing line in Western Civilization. A lot of interesting things happened in the late 15th and early 16th century and Patrick Wyman endeavors to guide the reader through the period, pointing out how events in that period affected subsequent generations. He does this by describing the lives of 9 people who lived during the period. Some, such as Columbus and Luther, are household names, while others are fairly obscure. All are interesting, not so much for the differences between their era and our own, but for the similarities.
The author's approach to his subject could be summarized as: FOLLOW THE MONEY. Europeans of this time had learned to assemble massive amounts of money through complex financial transactions and bookkeeping methods that kept track of these transactions and allowed everyone involved to know how much money they were making, or losing. Wyman suggests that the management of resources as practiced by the people of the16th century allowed their descendants to take advantage of the technical discoveries that lead to the Industrial Revolution.
One of the technical developments that was ongoing in the late 15th century was movable type as embodied in the printing press. Printing was capital intensive in that it required substantial investment in equipment and training before a product could be turned out to pay these costs. Therefore almost all printers started out in debt and needed a steady stream of content that customers wanted to buy. Wyman points out that Martin Luther and the printing industry were in a mutually beneficial relationship. Luther turned out a steady stream of pamphlets criticizing the Catholic Church, which in turn came up with pamphlets pointing out Luther's errors. Printers were less interested in getting to heaven than they were in selling the pamphlets of both sides. It is probably not a coincidence that the 16th and early 17th centuries featured almost continuous warfare in Europe. I am somewhat disturbed that the role of the printers in the religious controversies of 16th century Europe appear analogous to the role of social media and cable news in the political controversies of 21st century America.
The author's approach to his subject could be summarized as: FOLLOW THE MONEY. Europeans of this time had learned to assemble massive amounts of money through complex financial transactions and bookkeeping methods that kept track of these transactions and allowed everyone involved to know how much money they were making, or losing. Wyman suggests that the management of resources as practiced by the people of the16th century allowed their descendants to take advantage of the technical discoveries that lead to the Industrial Revolution.
One of the technical developments that was ongoing in the late 15th century was movable type as embodied in the printing press. Printing was capital intensive in that it required substantial investment in equipment and training before a product could be turned out to pay these costs. Therefore almost all printers started out in debt and needed a steady stream of content that customers wanted to buy. Wyman points out that Martin Luther and the printing industry were in a mutually beneficial relationship. Luther turned out a steady stream of pamphlets criticizing the Catholic Church, which in turn came up with pamphlets pointing out Luther's errors. Printers were less interested in getting to heaven than they were in selling the pamphlets of both sides. It is probably not a coincidence that the 16th and early 17th centuries featured almost continuous warfare in Europe. I am somewhat disturbed that the role of the printers in the religious controversies of 16th century Europe appear analogous to the role of social media and cable news in the political controversies of 21st century America.
April 15, 2024
Notes: A lukewarm dip in a shallow pool. Various factoids are presented with masculine elan. Chapters open with corny stage setting, present many details, and miss the point. The prose is bad and riddled with cliches. The structural conceit wears thin, tedious, and repetitive. Historical figures (mostly monstrous) are written about with vague disapproval, specific worship, and only slightly embarrassed awe of their vast and ill-gotten wealth, like glossy magazine profiles of Silicon Valley CEOs. An argument is sketchily made, dots are lightly connected, and readers new to the period walk away with limited understanding but many things to say confidently at dinner parties. I could practically hear the Dollar Shave Club ads. Just dreadful.
August 5, 2021
This book is what great narrative history looks like. Patrick Wyman has the kind of deft you hope for when reading about such a consequential time in history. Indeed, his main contention is that this bombastic forty years saw the rise of systems that influence and contextualize our lives up to the present moment. Topics cover everything from the formation of dynastic states like that of Spain, the development of modern European debt and trust, the importance of Tyrolean silver, the extensive nature of war and conflict in late medieval society, and much more. Despite the depth, there is no shortage of readability. The author is an expert, and it shows on every page.
December 3, 2021
The verge is a short and very readable account of an early phase in the rise of modern Europe, from 1490 to 1530 or so. Wyman has selected a cast of characters including Columbus, Ferdinand and Isabella, Martin Luther, the banker Jacob Fugger, various printers, Emperor Charles V and Suleyman the magnificent; and he uses their stories to weave a story of how the foundations of modern Europe (and by extension, of modernity itself) were laid by the fortuitous intersection of many small and big changes. The invention of printing, the rise of modern finance, the rise of professional military men, the reformation, all these played a role in creating the modern states of Western Europe; states that soon outclassed all competitors and eventually dominated the entire globe. If there is one factor that gets star billing in this book, it is the financial innovations that allowed Western European monarchies to tap more capital in more innovative ways, but the whole point is that no one magic factor drove the great divergence; many different factors came together to set the stage for it. The book is very well written and Wyman has a eye for interesting anecdotes and factoids that keep the reader engaged and interested. Well worth a read.
If you are interested in learning more, Razib Khan has a good review in the National Review: https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/0...
If you are interested in learning more, Razib Khan has a good review in the National Review: https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/0...
November 5, 2021
Who Should Read This Book – Readers interested in history, especially the history of the transition from the medieval to the modern world.
What’s the Big Takeaway – The years from 1490-1530 were a huge confluence of factors, some due to gifted people and others due to luck, that changed the entire world.
And a Quote – “Rather than focusing on a single variable, like a particular innovation or resources, it (this book) points to a particularly eventful period: the four decades between 1490 and 1530. In this brief span, less than a single human’s lifetime, western Europe’s future metamorphosis from backwater to superpower became possible thanks to a series of convulsive transformation” (12).
Patrick Wyman’s Tides of History is one of my favorite podcasts. When I first discovered it, which was pretty early on, he was going back and forth between the fall of Rome and the beginning of the modern world (if I remember correctly). Mostly the focus was the rise of the modern world. Since then he’s been doing a long series on prehistory and the beginning of civilization. But this book grows out of that first series.
The fun thing about this book is that it reads like episodes of the podcast. Wyman begins his stories by placing the listener/reader in the shoes of someone living at the time. As I began to read each chapter, I heard Wyman’s voice speaking in my head (and he reads the audiobook himself, for those of you who like audiobooks).
Throughout the book he tells his story through the eyes of nine different figures from this period. A few of them are household names, such as Christopher Columbus and Martin Luther. Others are average people, the sort who do not often make it into history books, such as John Heritage and Altus Manutius. This is the strength of the book. Some histories center on the big name movers and shakers. Wyman includes them, but by including regular wool merchants and bankers he paints a picture of what life was like for regular folks.
Of course, I personally found some of the chapters on these regular folk a bit boring. But the argument of the book is that the shaping of the modern world was just as much influenced by thousands of normal people as by a few rulers and explorers. Bankers with their credit ledgers, printers in their shops and wool merchants with their flocks and growing businesses all made everything that happened possible.
Let’s use the reformer Martin Luther as an illustration. If you study church history, Luther looms large. His story is told with all the usual points – nailing the 95 these on the door, going to the Diet of Worms, translating the New Testament into German. But there were so many things going on in the background that made what Luther did possible. The invention of the printing press does often get mentioned. Sometimes you learn a little of the politics of electing a Holy Roman Emperor and how Luther had a powerful protector in Elector Frederick.
But Wyman’s book shows how all these figures intersect and impact each other. Jakob Fugger’s banking was connected to the selling indulgences that angered Luther so much. The shifts in capital impacted how peasants worked and what they expected, which helped lead to the Peasant Revolt. Columbus’ exploration and the Turks invasions in Eastern Europe and Charles V’s many wars.
The transition from the medieval/premodern world to the modern one is a favorite subject of mine to read on. This book is a brilliant, popular level entry that popular history fans will love.
What’s the Big Takeaway – The years from 1490-1530 were a huge confluence of factors, some due to gifted people and others due to luck, that changed the entire world.
And a Quote – “Rather than focusing on a single variable, like a particular innovation or resources, it (this book) points to a particularly eventful period: the four decades between 1490 and 1530. In this brief span, less than a single human’s lifetime, western Europe’s future metamorphosis from backwater to superpower became possible thanks to a series of convulsive transformation” (12).
Patrick Wyman’s Tides of History is one of my favorite podcasts. When I first discovered it, which was pretty early on, he was going back and forth between the fall of Rome and the beginning of the modern world (if I remember correctly). Mostly the focus was the rise of the modern world. Since then he’s been doing a long series on prehistory and the beginning of civilization. But this book grows out of that first series.
The fun thing about this book is that it reads like episodes of the podcast. Wyman begins his stories by placing the listener/reader in the shoes of someone living at the time. As I began to read each chapter, I heard Wyman’s voice speaking in my head (and he reads the audiobook himself, for those of you who like audiobooks).
Throughout the book he tells his story through the eyes of nine different figures from this period. A few of them are household names, such as Christopher Columbus and Martin Luther. Others are average people, the sort who do not often make it into history books, such as John Heritage and Altus Manutius. This is the strength of the book. Some histories center on the big name movers and shakers. Wyman includes them, but by including regular wool merchants and bankers he paints a picture of what life was like for regular folks.
Of course, I personally found some of the chapters on these regular folk a bit boring. But the argument of the book is that the shaping of the modern world was just as much influenced by thousands of normal people as by a few rulers and explorers. Bankers with their credit ledgers, printers in their shops and wool merchants with their flocks and growing businesses all made everything that happened possible.
Let’s use the reformer Martin Luther as an illustration. If you study church history, Luther looms large. His story is told with all the usual points – nailing the 95 these on the door, going to the Diet of Worms, translating the New Testament into German. But there were so many things going on in the background that made what Luther did possible. The invention of the printing press does often get mentioned. Sometimes you learn a little of the politics of electing a Holy Roman Emperor and how Luther had a powerful protector in Elector Frederick.
But Wyman’s book shows how all these figures intersect and impact each other. Jakob Fugger’s banking was connected to the selling indulgences that angered Luther so much. The shifts in capital impacted how peasants worked and what they expected, which helped lead to the Peasant Revolt. Columbus’ exploration and the Turks invasions in Eastern Europe and Charles V’s many wars.
The transition from the medieval/premodern world to the modern one is a favorite subject of mine to read on. This book is a brilliant, popular level entry that popular history fans will love.
July 30, 2021
Audio ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
I did not discover Wyman via his podcast but I'm certainly going to track it down now! I imagine it will be an invaluable resource for a historical fiction like me. Wyman narrated his own book and this was a good choice - he knows his subject and what exactly to stress.
The book itself was a fascinating look at four decades during the renaissance which shaped much of European economy, trade and business. I got nerdily excited over Henry IV's account book a while back so the sort of records and details included her were just catnip for me. From Isabelle of Castille to local (to me) Moreton in the Marsh yeoman, John Heritage, this book was a lively and informative look at a brief, turbulent time that had a hand in shaping capitalism as we know it today. Highly recommend.
I did not discover Wyman via his podcast but I'm certainly going to track it down now! I imagine it will be an invaluable resource for a historical fiction like me. Wyman narrated his own book and this was a good choice - he knows his subject and what exactly to stress.
The book itself was a fascinating look at four decades during the renaissance which shaped much of European economy, trade and business. I got nerdily excited over Henry IV's account book a while back so the sort of records and details included her were just catnip for me. From Isabelle of Castille to local (to me) Moreton in the Marsh yeoman, John Heritage, this book was a lively and informative look at a brief, turbulent time that had a hand in shaping capitalism as we know it today. Highly recommend.
July 26, 2021
Really hope that I get a chance to get this book in front of my AP European History students. Accessible and a great read, it covers so many bases, but in very human ways. Clearly lays out the history with minimal judgment and I think does a good job of making capital a center point in the little divergence.
October 17, 2021
Wie bij de renaissance in de eerste plaats aan kunst denkt, komt er bekaaid af in dit boek! De Amerikaanse historicus Patrick Wyman schetst de opkomst van Europa in de eerste helft van de zestiende eeuw aan de hand van acht portretten. Daarbij zitten grote namen als Columbus en Maarten Luther, maar ook een Engelse wolkoopman, een Duitse soldaat en een Venetiaanse boekhandelaar. Maar een kunstenaar zit daar niet bij. Dat is ontnuchterend.
Wyman vertelt in wezen een financieel-economisch verhaal. Niet voor niets is één van zijn belangrijkste portretten dat van de grootfinancier Jakob Fugger. Om de opgang van Europa te verklaren, kijkt Wyman naar de economie. Dat is niet dom natuurlijk.
De opkomst van West-Europa als internationale dominator komt niet uit de hemel gevallen. Het gaat om brute economische macht en wereldlijk geweld. Wyman heeft oog voor de uitbuiting van tot slaaf gemaakte mensen, de uitroering van de Amerikaanse bevolking en ook voor het soms stomme toeval dat ervoor zorgde dat Europa de wind in de zeilen had. De ontdekking van Amerika was boerenchance, zo ook het slechte weer dat ervoor zorgde dat de eigenlijk geavanceerdere Ottomanen die mogelijk beslissende veldslag niet wonnen. Dat is best wel een frisse kijk op deze geschiedenis.
Uiteindelijk komen alle bloedlijnen, erfenissen en bewegingen van deze tijd samen in Karel V. Het portret dat Wyman van Karel schetst, is weinig flatterend. De keizer lijkt wel een schlemiel. Maar in de opgang van Europa als wereldmacht kan zijn rol moeilijk onderschat worden.
Dat doet Wyman niet, wel legt hij de nadruk op de rol van het toeval en de onbeholpenheid van de grootvorst. Het beeld is dubbelzinnig. Het eengemaakte Europa gaat ten onder aan verdeeldheid, en in een (vergeefse) poging om de inheemse Amerikanen te ontzien, zet keizer Karel ongewild de poort open voor de import van tot slaaf gemaakte Afrikanen naar de Nieuwe Wereld.
Wyman koppelt de grote geschiedenis aan erg menselijke portretten. Grote namen blijken hun kleine kantjes te hebben en kleine zielen passen in het grotere plaatje. Bovendien weet Wyman hoe hij een verhaal moet opbouwen. De manier waarop hij telkens een nieuw portret begint, is haast filmisch. De doorbraak leest daardoor bijzonder vlot.
Na Michael Pye’s De gloriejaren (over de rol van Antwerpen in deze periode) is Patrick Wymans De doorbraak een tweede oorspronkelijk Engelstalig boek dat recent over dit tijdsgewricht verschenen is. Samen tonen ze aan hoe "onze" wereld aan het begin van de zestiende eeuw in een (voorlopig) definitieve plooi is gevallen, en dat voor “the good, the bad and the ugly”.
Boeiend!
Wyman vertelt in wezen een financieel-economisch verhaal. Niet voor niets is één van zijn belangrijkste portretten dat van de grootfinancier Jakob Fugger. Om de opgang van Europa te verklaren, kijkt Wyman naar de economie. Dat is niet dom natuurlijk.
De opkomst van West-Europa als internationale dominator komt niet uit de hemel gevallen. Het gaat om brute economische macht en wereldlijk geweld. Wyman heeft oog voor de uitbuiting van tot slaaf gemaakte mensen, de uitroering van de Amerikaanse bevolking en ook voor het soms stomme toeval dat ervoor zorgde dat Europa de wind in de zeilen had. De ontdekking van Amerika was boerenchance, zo ook het slechte weer dat ervoor zorgde dat de eigenlijk geavanceerdere Ottomanen die mogelijk beslissende veldslag niet wonnen. Dat is best wel een frisse kijk op deze geschiedenis.
Uiteindelijk komen alle bloedlijnen, erfenissen en bewegingen van deze tijd samen in Karel V. Het portret dat Wyman van Karel schetst, is weinig flatterend. De keizer lijkt wel een schlemiel. Maar in de opgang van Europa als wereldmacht kan zijn rol moeilijk onderschat worden.
Dat doet Wyman niet, wel legt hij de nadruk op de rol van het toeval en de onbeholpenheid van de grootvorst. Het beeld is dubbelzinnig. Het eengemaakte Europa gaat ten onder aan verdeeldheid, en in een (vergeefse) poging om de inheemse Amerikanen te ontzien, zet keizer Karel ongewild de poort open voor de import van tot slaaf gemaakte Afrikanen naar de Nieuwe Wereld.
Wyman koppelt de grote geschiedenis aan erg menselijke portretten. Grote namen blijken hun kleine kantjes te hebben en kleine zielen passen in het grotere plaatje. Bovendien weet Wyman hoe hij een verhaal moet opbouwen. De manier waarop hij telkens een nieuw portret begint, is haast filmisch. De doorbraak leest daardoor bijzonder vlot.
Na Michael Pye’s De gloriejaren (over de rol van Antwerpen in deze periode) is Patrick Wymans De doorbraak een tweede oorspronkelijk Engelstalig boek dat recent over dit tijdsgewricht verschenen is. Samen tonen ze aan hoe "onze" wereld aan het begin van de zestiende eeuw in een (voorlopig) definitieve plooi is gevallen, en dat voor “the good, the bad and the ugly”.
Boeiend!
April 4, 2022
The Verge is popular history by a popular podcaster, with the strengths and weaknesses that the format entails. Wyman focuses on the pivotal decades between 1490 and 1530, when Europe went from an impoverished footnote in the global economy to the cradle of empires and much of what we consider modernity. The events which bookend this period are Columbus' famous expedition which discovered the Americas, and the 1527 Sack of Rome, when an army consisting of unpaid German mercenaries under the nominal command of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V sacked and looted Rome, the holiest site in Christendom.
The book is structured around biographies. Some of the subjects are famous: Columbus and Martin Luther foremost among them, with banker Jakob Fugger rounding out the trio. Three monarchs are included: Isabella of Spain, Charles V, and Ottoman Sultan Suleiman I. I found most fascinating the ordinary men, Man-at-arms Gotz von Berlichlingen, wool merchant John Heritage, and printer Aldus Manutius. Wyman has a talent for making the past come alive, and he hooks you with short fiction reconstructing what he subjects likely felt as they approached their pivotal events, before going into the context of their lives.
Where this book falls short is in the larger thesis. Wyman wants to say something about the institutions of capitalism and credit, but whether from an dislike of Marxist theory (a fair dislike), or an attempt to avoid alienating the reader, he repeatedly hammers the idea of the institution of credit and an attitude of venture as the key points that mark this great divergence. The two major elements of Europe's poverty through the 15th century was the aftermath of the demographic catastrophe of the Black Death, and more subtle effects of the bullion famine. There simple wasn't enough precious metal in Europe to enable the economy to function, and what little there was was sent East to purchases spices and other luxuries.
In the absence of specie, Europeans developed a system of credit where upfront cash could be repaid over years through incomes. On a mundane sense, this let woll merchant John Heritage take delivery of goods with a small payment where the total would be paid through the year, only after he had sold on to major exporters. Or a printer could have the money and time needed to invest in cases of type. Money could be invested in ships, in trade, and in war. This last bit, the alliance between kings and bankers, was needed to sustain an increasingly expensive and technological war machine. It's also where the thesis breaks down, because war is and was profoundly destructive, the opposite of investments in prudent capital.
The aim of The Verge is to describe the shift from a medieval mindset, one focused on tradition, personal ties, and martial honor, towards a modern world of innovation, profit, and credit worthiness. But where a serious book would get into the details, Wyman unfortunately gets cloudy and points towards a shared sense of how trade worked, rather than the specific mechanisms and relationships, and how they are both continuous and different from our 21st century versions. It's a shame, because the late David Graeber put it all much better in Debt, when he described these people as heavily indebted murderers who reduced everything around them to ready cash to stave off their financial day of reckoning a little bit further.
The book is structured around biographies. Some of the subjects are famous: Columbus and Martin Luther foremost among them, with banker Jakob Fugger rounding out the trio. Three monarchs are included: Isabella of Spain, Charles V, and Ottoman Sultan Suleiman I. I found most fascinating the ordinary men, Man-at-arms Gotz von Berlichlingen, wool merchant John Heritage, and printer Aldus Manutius. Wyman has a talent for making the past come alive, and he hooks you with short fiction reconstructing what he subjects likely felt as they approached their pivotal events, before going into the context of their lives.
Where this book falls short is in the larger thesis. Wyman wants to say something about the institutions of capitalism and credit, but whether from an dislike of Marxist theory (a fair dislike), or an attempt to avoid alienating the reader, he repeatedly hammers the idea of the institution of credit and an attitude of venture as the key points that mark this great divergence. The two major elements of Europe's poverty through the 15th century was the aftermath of the demographic catastrophe of the Black Death, and more subtle effects of the bullion famine. There simple wasn't enough precious metal in Europe to enable the economy to function, and what little there was was sent East to purchases spices and other luxuries.
In the absence of specie, Europeans developed a system of credit where upfront cash could be repaid over years through incomes. On a mundane sense, this let woll merchant John Heritage take delivery of goods with a small payment where the total would be paid through the year, only after he had sold on to major exporters. Or a printer could have the money and time needed to invest in cases of type. Money could be invested in ships, in trade, and in war. This last bit, the alliance between kings and bankers, was needed to sustain an increasingly expensive and technological war machine. It's also where the thesis breaks down, because war is and was profoundly destructive, the opposite of investments in prudent capital.
The aim of The Verge is to describe the shift from a medieval mindset, one focused on tradition, personal ties, and martial honor, towards a modern world of innovation, profit, and credit worthiness. But where a serious book would get into the details, Wyman unfortunately gets cloudy and points towards a shared sense of how trade worked, rather than the specific mechanisms and relationships, and how they are both continuous and different from our 21st century versions. It's a shame, because the late David Graeber put it all much better in Debt, when he described these people as heavily indebted murderers who reduced everything around them to ready cash to stave off their financial day of reckoning a little bit further.
October 15, 2023
Seriously overrated. Lots of fuzzy and vague generalizations, very few hard facts and little historical analysis. The anecdotes in each chapter add color but seriously detract from the narrative because the author has no way of knowing if the extensive details he imagines ever actually happened. The writing is more suitable for historical fiction than actual history. As another reviewer noted, the casual style is actually a mask for sloppy research.
Wyman does not make the case that these 40 years are the pivotal ones in Europe's transformation (as opposed - to throw just one example out - the 30 years war a century later). He also doesn't make the case that financial credit institutions are the key factor in the West’s rise, as opposed to the much more likely "key factor" that Europe had dozens of states that had to evolve to survive against competitors in a Darwinian jungle whereas (for example) China had monolithic hegemony of its area and did not need to evolve to survive.
The chapter on the Ottoman Empire in which he claims that their budget surpluses sowed the seed of their later decline and fall is particularly weak. Why and how precisely did they do that? Wyman provides zero details. His rather bold claim just sits there completely unsupported. But that's just the most blatant example of the fuzzy thinking that permeates every chapter of the book. There's just not a lot of there, there.
(Added some details to this review and decided 2* was a fairer rating than my earlier 3*. - 2/18/22)
Wyman does not make the case that these 40 years are the pivotal ones in Europe's transformation (as opposed - to throw just one example out - the 30 years war a century later). He also doesn't make the case that financial credit institutions are the key factor in the West’s rise, as opposed to the much more likely "key factor" that Europe had dozens of states that had to evolve to survive against competitors in a Darwinian jungle whereas (for example) China had monolithic hegemony of its area and did not need to evolve to survive.
The chapter on the Ottoman Empire in which he claims that their budget surpluses sowed the seed of their later decline and fall is particularly weak. Why and how precisely did they do that? Wyman provides zero details. His rather bold claim just sits there completely unsupported. But that's just the most blatant example of the fuzzy thinking that permeates every chapter of the book. There's just not a lot of there, there.
(Added some details to this review and decided 2* was a fairer rating than my earlier 3*. - 2/18/22)
March 13, 2022
A book that is fundamentally fine, but has too many weird quirks to truly recommend. The idea of covering this forty year period by devoting time to each of nine influential people of the era is clever. I even quite like the idea that some of those people are obvious (Charles V, Martin Luther), and some are as obscure as a wool trader in England.
In practice, though, what this book ends up with is too brief an insight into any of these people to feel satisfying, but also too broad a scope to feel concise on its principal points. I have no qualms with the assertion that the period of 1490-1530 is exceedingly influential in modern history, but I'm not certain this book really proves that it is. What Wyman has written here is a nice overview of the period, but he never quite sold me that the things he sees as interwoven truly are by more than happenstance.
It's not a bad book by any means, but I'm left feeling it was a bit aimless. Chapter intros and conclusions feel like obligatory collegiate essay structure rather than serving as the links they really should. There are some fun delves into people's lives here, but the work overall is difficult to recommend.
In practice, though, what this book ends up with is too brief an insight into any of these people to feel satisfying, but also too broad a scope to feel concise on its principal points. I have no qualms with the assertion that the period of 1490-1530 is exceedingly influential in modern history, but I'm not certain this book really proves that it is. What Wyman has written here is a nice overview of the period, but he never quite sold me that the things he sees as interwoven truly are by more than happenstance.
It's not a bad book by any means, but I'm left feeling it was a bit aimless. Chapter intros and conclusions feel like obligatory collegiate essay structure rather than serving as the links they really should. There are some fun delves into people's lives here, but the work overall is difficult to recommend.
May 9, 2022
Just finished this. Really enjoyed it. Have lots of notes to digest.
It's popular history. It's very engaging and readable. It has a catchy/click-baitey subtitle. There's plenty of war and political drama. On the surface it's about all the huge changes that happened in Europe in a 40-year period — the clash of kings, endless and escalating warfare, voyages of exploration, the explosion of printing, the birth of the Protestant Reformation — that set the course for the modern world.
That's all exciting stuff, but the real focus of the book is the financial institutions and innovations that enabled it. Behind every great endeavor is a tale of frantic money-wrangling. Outfitting ships for long voyages costs a lot of money. So does fielding armies. Early printing presses were astonishingly expensive. I ended up skimming the battle scenes and court intrigues, and cross-referencing the accounting figures.
It's popular history. It's very engaging and readable. It has a catchy/click-baitey subtitle. There's plenty of war and political drama. On the surface it's about all the huge changes that happened in Europe in a 40-year period — the clash of kings, endless and escalating warfare, voyages of exploration, the explosion of printing, the birth of the Protestant Reformation — that set the course for the modern world.
That's all exciting stuff, but the real focus of the book is the financial institutions and innovations that enabled it. Behind every great endeavor is a tale of frantic money-wrangling. Outfitting ships for long voyages costs a lot of money. So does fielding armies. Early printing presses were astonishingly expensive. I ended up skimming the battle scenes and court intrigues, and cross-referencing the accounting figures.
August 12, 2021
Quality is maybe 3 stars but the writing takes it down a peg. Keeps saying “chomping at the bit” among other cliches. Meant to write them down but who can be bothered. Every narrative description he opens a chapter with is pretty tortured.
As far as the actual content it’s just kind of airport read-y. I feel like he really doesn’t actually prove his point that debt financing and bonds put European countries above others. He only makes a comparison to the Ottoman Empire. I feel like it would have benefited from more of an explanation of the differences. Just continues to insist that Europeans had a “shared understanding of institutions etc etc etc”.
But ultimately not THAT bad. I had fun reading it and learned a few things. Would probably recommend to people without a huge interest in history.
As far as the actual content it’s just kind of airport read-y. I feel like he really doesn’t actually prove his point that debt financing and bonds put European countries above others. He only makes a comparison to the Ottoman Empire. I feel like it would have benefited from more of an explanation of the differences. Just continues to insist that Europeans had a “shared understanding of institutions etc etc etc”.
But ultimately not THAT bad. I had fun reading it and learned a few things. Would probably recommend to people without a huge interest in history.
January 23, 2024
I did not finish this book even though it was often enjoyable. “The Verge” is a Frankenstein’s monster cobbled together from academic papers and cut rate fantasy fiction. The author’s central argument was interesting enough to goad me into reading the book in the first place. He argues that the 40 years between 1490 and 1530 changed Europe forever. In those 40 years, he alleges that Europe transformed from a global backwater into a competitive array of geopolitical powers.
The problem is that this intriguing hypothesis is stillborn due to the author’s obsession with describing the events in his book as if the historical figures were characters in one of R.A. Salvatore’s “The Legend of Drizzt” series. He describes situations with such improbable detail that I was often left wondering which parts of the chapters were fiction and which were factual.
In the end, I remain unconvinced. I don’t believe Europe was a backwater prior to 1490 and I’m not on board with the idea that capitalism was born in that short period. If I want an academic paper, I’ll read academic writings. If I want a story, I’ll read Brandon Sanderson (maybe).
The problem is that this intriguing hypothesis is stillborn due to the author’s obsession with describing the events in his book as if the historical figures were characters in one of R.A. Salvatore’s “The Legend of Drizzt” series. He describes situations with such improbable detail that I was often left wondering which parts of the chapters were fiction and which were factual.
In the end, I remain unconvinced. I don’t believe Europe was a backwater prior to 1490 and I’m not on board with the idea that capitalism was born in that short period. If I want an academic paper, I’ll read academic writings. If I want a story, I’ll read Brandon Sanderson (maybe).
February 8, 2022
Really enjoy the way this is themed and presented - Wyman has a really evocative way of writing that lands even with someone who doesn't generally visualise things as I'm reading them.
August 23, 2021
Commerce, competition, and cruelty -- three must-haves for success in the early-modern era.
By 1490 (the book's starting point), commerce and competition in Europe were driving each other in an upward spiral as the medieval patron-client model broke down and market forces took over. The process had already been accelerating for over a century due to successive waves of plague, which depopulated Europe and severely contracted its economy, making the old grain-based peasant system unprofitable (not enough cheap labor to till the land, not enough demand for grain). Landowners now found it more cost effective to simply rent out their land rather than trying to keep discontented peasants in serfdom. And it drove a transition to less labor-intensive pursuits (in England, this meant sheep grazing and wool production).
Cruelty was key to both state building and capitalism. Princes vied for power in endless darwinian wars -- and the winners consolidated their gains, in the process creating something that began to resemble modern European states. Capitalism found profit where it could, which in this pre-industrial era meant enslaving people _en masse_ and plundering the riches of the newly encountered Americas (annihilating the native populations in the process). All of this was bankrolled by increasingly sophisticated financing mechanisms and recorded in well-kept account books. And as the author notes, "[t]hese accounts were written not in ink, but in blood."
One big loser from this era was the Catholic Church. The church embraced both commerce (papal banking was big business) and cruelty (auto-da-fé, anyone?) But it was insulated from competition, and thus failed to grasp the changes going on around it. Which is how an obscure Augustinian monk from Wittenberg was able to split Christendom with nothing more than some cheaply printed polemics. (Printers loved Luther because his angry pamphlets could be produced at low cost and always sold out quickly. Printing was a highly competitive business, with large up-front costs and uncertain profits. So a controversy-magnet like Luther was a gold mine for them. They were happy to print responses from his Catholic opponents too, but those didn't sell as well.)
Europe was still comparatively weak during the period covered by this book, as demonstrated by the victories of Suleiman the Magnificent, who trounced Hungary and besieged Vienna. Suleiman was able to tap into the old empire model -- he relied on his formidable bureaucracy to marshal fighting forces and collect taxes. That approach was a good bet before the Industrial Revolution, because it was the most effective way for a traditional, agrarian economy to exploit its sources of wealth. So the Ottoman Empire was far better resourced than its western competitors during this period. But the Ottomans stuck with that model too long, and eventually were overtaken by the more dynamic economies of Europe.
This book is an excellent introduction to a pivotal era in European history. It's accessible and lots of fun to read. BTW, the author also does a podcast called "Tides of History," which I highly recommend.
By 1490 (the book's starting point), commerce and competition in Europe were driving each other in an upward spiral as the medieval patron-client model broke down and market forces took over. The process had already been accelerating for over a century due to successive waves of plague, which depopulated Europe and severely contracted its economy, making the old grain-based peasant system unprofitable (not enough cheap labor to till the land, not enough demand for grain). Landowners now found it more cost effective to simply rent out their land rather than trying to keep discontented peasants in serfdom. And it drove a transition to less labor-intensive pursuits (in England, this meant sheep grazing and wool production).
Cruelty was key to both state building and capitalism. Princes vied for power in endless darwinian wars -- and the winners consolidated their gains, in the process creating something that began to resemble modern European states. Capitalism found profit where it could, which in this pre-industrial era meant enslaving people _en masse_ and plundering the riches of the newly encountered Americas (annihilating the native populations in the process). All of this was bankrolled by increasingly sophisticated financing mechanisms and recorded in well-kept account books. And as the author notes, "[t]hese accounts were written not in ink, but in blood."
One big loser from this era was the Catholic Church. The church embraced both commerce (papal banking was big business) and cruelty (auto-da-fé, anyone?) But it was insulated from competition, and thus failed to grasp the changes going on around it. Which is how an obscure Augustinian monk from Wittenberg was able to split Christendom with nothing more than some cheaply printed polemics. (Printers loved Luther because his angry pamphlets could be produced at low cost and always sold out quickly. Printing was a highly competitive business, with large up-front costs and uncertain profits. So a controversy-magnet like Luther was a gold mine for them. They were happy to print responses from his Catholic opponents too, but those didn't sell as well.)
Europe was still comparatively weak during the period covered by this book, as demonstrated by the victories of Suleiman the Magnificent, who trounced Hungary and besieged Vienna. Suleiman was able to tap into the old empire model -- he relied on his formidable bureaucracy to marshal fighting forces and collect taxes. That approach was a good bet before the Industrial Revolution, because it was the most effective way for a traditional, agrarian economy to exploit its sources of wealth. So the Ottoman Empire was far better resourced than its western competitors during this period. But the Ottomans stuck with that model too long, and eventually were overtaken by the more dynamic economies of Europe.
This book is an excellent introduction to a pivotal era in European history. It's accessible and lots of fun to read. BTW, the author also does a podcast called "Tides of History," which I highly recommend.
August 4, 2021
Real question is is whether you should you read it if you don't know who Patrick Wyman is, and you don't listen to any of his podcasts.
And the answer is unquestionably yes! This is the best type of popular history book. Not the type where serious men are walking and deciding the fate of nation, but a book that centers at main drivers of one of the central transformation in history, that happened in western Europe in early 1500s.
Add an unusual perspective - lives of 10 people of various fame and power, plain and accessible language with no jargon, and you get a great popular history book.
And if you listen to Wyman's podcast Tides of History, no doubt you got this book already and enjoying it.
And the answer is unquestionably yes! This is the best type of popular history book. Not the type where serious men are walking and deciding the fate of nation, but a book that centers at main drivers of one of the central transformation in history, that happened in western Europe in early 1500s.
Add an unusual perspective - lives of 10 people of various fame and power, plain and accessible language with no jargon, and you get a great popular history book.
And if you listen to Wyman's podcast Tides of History, no doubt you got this book already and enjoying it.
November 8, 2021
Patrick Wyman’s The Verge is a real pleasure to listen to: a compelling narrative history, particularly the chapter in the 15th-Century wooltrader.
August 6, 2021
A great introduction to an overlooked turning point in history: the years 1490-1530, which featured Columbus' voyage to the New World, Martin Luther kicking off the Reformation, the formation via inheritance of the Habsburg Empire, the Siege of Vienna, and a host of slower-moving but equally momentous developments in military technology, finance, printing and book distribution, and more. Wyman weaves a layman's introduction to this time through use of a host of separate-but-connected capsule biographies, some of world-famous figures like Columbus and Luther, others ordinary people who happened to leave detailed records of their quotidian existences that came down to us.
Supporting all this is a general theme: that the people of this time were just as intelligent, just as competitive, and — this word keeps coming up — just as capitalistic as their descendants in future centuries. Why did Martin Luther's protests spark a schism while earlier figures like Jan Hus were contained regionally? Because the printing press enabled wide distribution of Luther's arguments, yes — but also because there was huge demand for Luther's arguments. Luther's opponents wrote pamphlets, too; they just didn't sell as well. So printers came to Luther. It was the developing economic institutions of Europe, its ability to raise and move capital, that fueled the famous "Great Divergence" that saw the poor backwater of Europe pull ahead of the rest of the world, Wyman argues (though this is only indirectly a book about the Great Divergence).
The use of nine different centering figures helps make the book accessible for lay readers, though at the cost of some depth. That's not to say this book is shallow — it's well-researched and holds up well to my moderate knowledge of the period — but it wasn't as focused as if it had limited itself to, say, three main characters. I'm not sure there was a Pareto-optimal situation here; as a history junkie I might have preferred a deeper book, but that might have been at the cost of scale and accessibility.
Recommended to anyone who wants to learn more about this foundational era in history.
Supporting all this is a general theme: that the people of this time were just as intelligent, just as competitive, and — this word keeps coming up — just as capitalistic as their descendants in future centuries. Why did Martin Luther's protests spark a schism while earlier figures like Jan Hus were contained regionally? Because the printing press enabled wide distribution of Luther's arguments, yes — but also because there was huge demand for Luther's arguments. Luther's opponents wrote pamphlets, too; they just didn't sell as well. So printers came to Luther. It was the developing economic institutions of Europe, its ability to raise and move capital, that fueled the famous "Great Divergence" that saw the poor backwater of Europe pull ahead of the rest of the world, Wyman argues (though this is only indirectly a book about the Great Divergence).
The use of nine different centering figures helps make the book accessible for lay readers, though at the cost of some depth. That's not to say this book is shallow — it's well-researched and holds up well to my moderate knowledge of the period — but it wasn't as focused as if it had limited itself to, say, three main characters. I'm not sure there was a Pareto-optimal situation here; as a history junkie I might have preferred a deeper book, but that might have been at the cost of scale and accessibility.
Recommended to anyone who wants to learn more about this foundational era in history.
February 13, 2022
Patrick Wyman's argument that the 40 years between 1490-1530 were pivotal in shaping the modern world is developed through the stories of 10 key men whose warmongering, economic strategizing, and big-picture plotting shaped Europe at a critical time of renaissance. From the well-known Christopher Columbus and Martin Luther to the lesser-known but more integral wealthy banker, Jakob Fugger, Wyman argues that the world could not have evolved it it weren't for the confluence of these big-picture socio-political-economic movers and shakers.
While I learned a lot about warfare (and often its futility at the expense of countless nameless lives), "The Verge" often felt like a drudge to make my way through. Still, it was an apt reminder that there have always been a select few barons and specialists who rise to the top of their game to rule the world with an iron grip - because who wants to let go of their influence, power, or wealth when they can make other nameless workers and soldiers toil ceaselessly to wrest it ruthlessly from others?
While I learned a lot about warfare (and often its futility at the expense of countless nameless lives), "The Verge" often felt like a drudge to make my way through. Still, it was an apt reminder that there have always been a select few barons and specialists who rise to the top of their game to rule the world with an iron grip - because who wants to let go of their influence, power, or wealth when they can make other nameless workers and soldiers toil ceaselessly to wrest it ruthlessly from others?
January 7, 2022
I find the enthusiasm for this book baffling. His prose are mundane and very repetitious and he pursues his thesis with much hand-waving, a smattering of anecdotes, and, effectively, no data. Very disappointed
January 16, 2022
1490-1530 is een scharnierperiode en Patrick Wyman weet dit bijzonder goed aan te tonen. Hij vertrekt vanuit enkele bekende en minder bekende figuren uit dit tijdsgewricht om het belang van de diverse omwentelingen en de onderlinge interactie te beschrijven.
August 10, 2021
Between 1490 and 1530 Columbus made his first voyages and the European world began its conquest of the America's. Rome was sacked by a motley army of mercenaries under the titular flag of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Martin Luther split the Catholic Church apart after over 1000 years of it dominating all of Europe. Modern international finance, involving double entry bookkeeping, international letters of credit and multinational bankers, was born. Printing on a press became a business and the printing of ancient Greek and Roman texts in large editions overturned the medieval scholastic tradition.
Wyman makes a compelling case that these forty years where the end of the medieval era and the very beginning of the modern era. He organizes the book around nine lives. Some are well known. Christopher Columbus, Martin Luther, King Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, Queen Isabella of Spain and Suleman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, each get a chapter.
The other lives are less well known but they have left documents which allow Wyman to tell a life story. Jacob Fugger, a German banker who was considered the richest man in the world, left many family records. Aldus Manitius , a prominent Venetian printer of elegantly produced classical books, and John Heritage, an English wool dealer, each left business records which survive. Gotz von Berlichingen, a wild German mercenary who fought his way across Europe, wrote an autobiography.
Wyman does much more than tell stories. He uses his lives to illustrate the movement of history during this period. He argues that the driving forces of the era where "a distinct orientation towards profit-seeking combined with a willingness to inflict violence" and "strong religious sentiments, namely the concept of crusading and the ideals of knightly chivalry".
His focus on the profit motive is the most interesting part of the book. He shows in detail that wars take money and the money came from international bankers like the Fuggers. Exploration was driven by the desire for gold and silver. It was financed more by private capital then by state funds. Businessmen, whether printers or wool dealers, where part of the international money economy. Even Martin Luther could afford to become a monk only because his father was a successful mine owner, funded by Fugger capital.
One interesting argument he makes is that the Ottoman Empire never developed the same type of well functioning capital markets because its tax system was too effective. The Ottomans had a well administered and relatively fair tax system that produced enough money for the state to finance its needs, including war. There was no need for a private capital system to lend money to the government to finance wars.
I have made the book sound much dryer than it is. Wyman weaves the theory into his explanation of what it was like to live at the time and into nine interesting lives. This is a model of popular history.
I have one qualm. He begins each chapter with a fictionization of a key scene. We are with a German soldier invading Rome or inside Luther's head as he goes to answer to his bishop or with Charles V as he lands in his Spanish Kingdom the first time. The sections are fiction. We get lines like "So this is Spain' , Charles thought." or Queen Isabella, as a young girl praying in church, "Her lips moved soundlessly". Wyman is making this stuff up.
I get the idea that he wants to hook us into the story but I don't think it fits in what is otherwise a well researched factual telling of what happened. It also seems like everyone in these vignettes is always sweating.
Wyman makes a compelling case that these forty years where the end of the medieval era and the very beginning of the modern era. He organizes the book around nine lives. Some are well known. Christopher Columbus, Martin Luther, King Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, Queen Isabella of Spain and Suleman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, each get a chapter.
The other lives are less well known but they have left documents which allow Wyman to tell a life story. Jacob Fugger, a German banker who was considered the richest man in the world, left many family records. Aldus Manitius , a prominent Venetian printer of elegantly produced classical books, and John Heritage, an English wool dealer, each left business records which survive. Gotz von Berlichingen, a wild German mercenary who fought his way across Europe, wrote an autobiography.
Wyman does much more than tell stories. He uses his lives to illustrate the movement of history during this period. He argues that the driving forces of the era where "a distinct orientation towards profit-seeking combined with a willingness to inflict violence" and "strong religious sentiments, namely the concept of crusading and the ideals of knightly chivalry".
His focus on the profit motive is the most interesting part of the book. He shows in detail that wars take money and the money came from international bankers like the Fuggers. Exploration was driven by the desire for gold and silver. It was financed more by private capital then by state funds. Businessmen, whether printers or wool dealers, where part of the international money economy. Even Martin Luther could afford to become a monk only because his father was a successful mine owner, funded by Fugger capital.
One interesting argument he makes is that the Ottoman Empire never developed the same type of well functioning capital markets because its tax system was too effective. The Ottomans had a well administered and relatively fair tax system that produced enough money for the state to finance its needs, including war. There was no need for a private capital system to lend money to the government to finance wars.
I have made the book sound much dryer than it is. Wyman weaves the theory into his explanation of what it was like to live at the time and into nine interesting lives. This is a model of popular history.
I have one qualm. He begins each chapter with a fictionization of a key scene. We are with a German soldier invading Rome or inside Luther's head as he goes to answer to his bishop or with Charles V as he lands in his Spanish Kingdom the first time. The sections are fiction. We get lines like "So this is Spain' , Charles thought." or Queen Isabella, as a young girl praying in church, "Her lips moved soundlessly". Wyman is making this stuff up.
I get the idea that he wants to hook us into the story but I don't think it fits in what is otherwise a well researched factual telling of what happened. It also seems like everyone in these vignettes is always sweating.
November 19, 2021
Interesting historical perspective on a turbulent period
It might be a bit of a stretch to claim that the 4 decades described in this book were 'a decisive turning point for European and world history', but the author does make some very interesting connections between the different developments in economy, politics, religion and culture that were happening in this period.
Especially the chapters about how the invention of the printing press helped the spread of Martin Luther's case against the abuses of the Catholic church and how the nascent banking industry helped fund the numerous wars that were going on very fascinating.
But not all chapters are as relevant as the ones mentioned above. Especially the chapter about Götz von Berlichingen and the Military Revolution couldn't convince me. And although the rise of the Ottoman Empire had an impact on European politics, I wouldn't call it a turning point in Western history.
That being said, the book gives sufficient pause for thought about how this relatively brief period in history led to important evolutions that would have consequences for centuries to come (among others the 'discovery' of new territories and how they were abused from the start).
It might be a bit of a stretch to claim that the 4 decades described in this book were 'a decisive turning point for European and world history', but the author does make some very interesting connections between the different developments in economy, politics, religion and culture that were happening in this period.
Especially the chapters about how the invention of the printing press helped the spread of Martin Luther's case against the abuses of the Catholic church and how the nascent banking industry helped fund the numerous wars that were going on very fascinating.
But not all chapters are as relevant as the ones mentioned above. Especially the chapter about Götz von Berlichingen and the Military Revolution couldn't convince me. And although the rise of the Ottoman Empire had an impact on European politics, I wouldn't call it a turning point in Western history.
That being said, the book gives sufficient pause for thought about how this relatively brief period in history led to important evolutions that would have consequences for centuries to come (among others the 'discovery' of new territories and how they were abused from the start).
October 9, 2021
Excellent look at Europe from 1490-1530 when use of money and bankers started really taking over Europe. The Black Death earlier in the 15th Century had broken up Manor life and people started moving. Trade became more important and the push of Empire began forcing small kingdoms into alliances and suzerainty. Money lending to certain kings fed wars and take overs. It funded Columbus’ trip to the Americas. When Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, etc had tapped out the wealth of Europe, his rule of Spain and access to wealth in the Americas kept him powerful. Reading this made me grateful that King Henry VIII decided to go with Anne Boleyn and Protestantism. England avoided being eaten up by the Hapsburg Empire. Martin Luther’s objection to capitalism and the Catholic Church is covered as is Gutenberg and the printing press. Great book.
September 8, 2021
An enjoyable look at Western Europe at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, chronicling changes in warfare, economic organization, statecraft, and state finance and the changes they wrought on the landscape. He wove Columbus, Charles V, Luther, the Fuggers, and some representative figures from other trends together to tell the story. Stylistically it was fine, although it suffered a bit from his attempts to weave bulbous noses and windswept hair and other speculative descriptors into his narrative. On the whole though it was a good read that assimilated a number of different disciplines - some familiar and some unfamiliar - to try to explain an era of great change.
October 5, 2021
The author sought to cover a specific 40-year period in European history as sort of the beginning of the Great Divergence--or at least where all the seeds for that period began to be planted. Each chapter by Wyman tends to focus on a single individual, but used that individual as a lens or microcosm for the trends the author wanted to explore, and he does this to great effect. I especially enjoyed the chapters on Jakob Fugger and John Heritage, which explore economics in different ways. And honestly, that was one of my favorite parts of the book, the fact that economics is so clearly explained in a throughline to the whole book.
Definitely recommended for anyone interested in this time period, and I love Wyman work on his podcast Tides of History as one of the very few historian-trained podcasters out there (versus the more common history enthusiasts).
Definitely recommended for anyone interested in this time period, and I love Wyman work on his podcast Tides of History as one of the very few historian-trained podcasters out there (versus the more common history enthusiasts).
November 27, 2022
Nerd of history kind of book. The author has a claim that this period is the key tgat brought the West to its success. I wasn't convinced but I enjoyed the look at the beginning of the XVIth century.
I liked how the authors always introduced the important element of his analysis through chapter-biography of representative characters. And then make his conclusion looking at Charles the Vth to get a vision of whole a Europe.
Only 4/5 stars because I feel it's just a "look around" of these decades without a strong conclusion.
I liked how the authors always introduced the important element of his analysis through chapter-biography of representative characters. And then make his conclusion looking at Charles the Vth to get a vision of whole a Europe.
Only 4/5 stars because I feel it's just a "look around" of these decades without a strong conclusion.
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