Renaissance to Revolution: Europe, 1300-1800
MIT OpenCourseWare traces European political, social, cultural and intellectual change from the Italian Renaissance around 1300 to the outbreak of the French Revolution in the 1790s. The course examines the shifting and often porous boundaries between theology, magic and science, and looks at how the spread of print reshaped political institutions, social hierarchies and cultural practices. Readings and lectures cover nobles and commoners, men and women, and encounters between Europeans and the non-European peoples they traded with, converted, or colonized. Materials include the full syllabus, lecture topics, readings and assignments as published by MIT, free to access with no certificate attached. It suits anyone wanting a structured overview of five centuries of European transformation, from Machiavelli's Florence through the witch trials and the printing press to the ideas that fed into 1789.