Books by Anthony Grafton

Renowned historian Anthony Grafton invites us to see the scholars of early modern Europe as laborers. Bookish but hardly divorced from physical tasks, they were artisans of script and print. Drawing new connections between text and craft, publishing and intellectual history, Grafton shows that the life of the mind depends on the work of the hands.

A historical investigation of the phenomena of religious conversion from ancient to modern times.

A follow-up to the popular Graduate Study for the 21st Century , this book seeks to expand professional development to include the personal aspects of daily lives in the humanities. How to Build a Life in the Humanities delves into pressing work-life issues such as post-tenure depression, academic life with children, aging, and adjuncting.

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.

Cardano was an Italian doctor, natural philosopher, and mathematician who became a best-selling author. He was also a leading astrologer, who trafficked with some of Renaissance Europe's most powerful people. Grafton follows this astrologer's extraordinary career and explores the discipline of astrology in the hands of a brilliant practitioner.

Grafton reveals the microdynamics of the scholarly life through a series of essays on institutions and on scholars ranging from early modern polymaths to modern intellectual historians to American thinkers and writers. Grafton's engaging, erudite essays could be a rallying cry for the revival of the liberal arts.

Fusing high scholarship with high drama, Grafton and Weinberg uncover a secret and extraordinary aspect of legendary Renaissance scholar Isaac Casaubon's already celebrated achievement.

The work of the Renaissance humanists comes to life in this exploration of European letters from the 15th to the 19th century. Grafton defines the current state of the art of scholarship on early modern European cultural and intellectual history while simultaneously demonstrating how entertaining, enlightening, and relevant that history can be.