Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Politics & government

1616

Thomas Christensen

The World in Motion

Combining riveting storytelling with more than a hundred stunning color images, 1616 reveals a captivating glance into a revolutionary year in history.

The world of 1616 was a world of motion. enormous galleons carrying silk and silver across the Pacific created the first true global economy, and the first international megacorporations were emerging as economic powers. in europe, the deaths of Shakespeare and Cervantes marked the end of an era in liter- ature, as the spirit of the Renaissance was giving way to new attitudes that would lead to the Age of Revolution. great changes were also taking place in east Asia, where the last native Chinese dynasty was entering its final years and japan was beginning its long period of warrior rule. Artists there, as in many parts of the world, were rethinking their connections to ancient traditions and experimenting with new directions. Women everywhere were redefining their roles in family and society. Slave trading was relocating large numbers of people, while others were migrating in search of new opportunities. The first tourists, traveling not for trade or exploration but for personal fulfillment, were exploring this new globalized world. Thomas Christensen illuminates this extravagant age by focusing on a single riotous year. Woven with color images and artwork from the period, 1616 tells the surprising tales of the men and women who set the world on its tumultuous course toward modernity.

Thomas Christensen's previous books include New World/ New Words: Recent Writing from the Americas, A Bilingual Anthology, The U.S.-Mexican War, and The Discovery of America and Other Myths as well as translations of books by such authors as laura esquivel, Carlos Fuentes, julio Cortázar, Alejo Carpentier, and louis-Ferdinand Céline. He is director of publications at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and lives with his wife in Richmond, California.

Available products
Book Published 2012-03-01 by Counterpoint
Book Published 2012-03-01 by Counterpoint

Comments

Shakespeare may have died in 1616 (as incidentally did Cervantes on the same date!) but here we have Love's Labour Found. A brimmingly generous intellectual feast, lavishly curated by Mr. Christensen on every page a fresh marvel the catalog, as it were, of a show just asking to be mounted, and the Show of the Year at that.

At the outset, Christensen confesses his lack of academic standing to write history, given his background as a translator (Like Water for Chocolate, with Carol Christensen) and editor and director of publications at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum. Nevertheless, he has created a stunning overview of the nascent modern world through a thematic exploration of the year 1616. Christensen's interweaves various narratives to describe such trends as the increasing roles of private corporations like the Dutch East India Company and of economics in world politics or the emerging voices of women as writers such as Dorothy Leigh, whose The Mother's Blessing had 23 printings and occasionally powerful participants in statecraft, like Nur Jahan, who aided her husband in ruling the Mughal empire. Juxtaposing concurrent growths in witch hunting and scientific discoveries, Christensen points out that Kepler calculated the laws of planetary motion while also defending his mother, an illiterate herbalist, against witchcraft charges. Careful to include events from around the world, not just Europe and the Americas, Christensen enhances his excellent explications of backgrounds and settings with dozens of fabulous illustrations. Most readers will want an atlas to track the action in 1616's "world in motion.

With its stories of restless spirits and restless feet and its truly amazing images from Japan to Persia to Rome, this book will surprise and delight every reader and provide new insights into an interactive early modern world.

Well-researched and entertaining.... [Christensen] was clearly scrupulous about the research, and he discusses the material with the authority of an expert. The illustrations, photos, timeline and selected reading section also enhance reader understanding of the issues at play.... Christensen provides interesting anecdotes and a unique reading experience "Outstanding book. Tom Christensen's scholarship is meticulous. The reproductions are beautiful. 1616 is a treasure.