The World at First Light

A magisterial history of the Renaissance and the birth of the modern world The cultural epoch we know as the Renaissance emerged at a certain time and in a certain place. Why then and not earlier? Why there and not elsewhere? In The World at First Ligh t, historian Bernd Roeck explores the cultural and historical preconditions that enabled the European Renaissance. Roeck shows that the rediscovery of ancient knowledge, including the science of the medieval Arab world, played a critical role in s