the renaissance was a significant cultural breakthrough and largely happened in italy, which i believe is the case because italy was close to an important center of power (rome), which is because rome was the epicenter of a big empire centuries earlier. that gave it a lot of connections and gave it a cultural boost for centuries later.
what if the same thing happens with the US in a few centuries?
Did you really fucking take the time to link us to Wikipedia?
You would love reading any Roman History book and then “Inventing the Renaissance” by Ada palmer.
You’re right. It really does feel like were in the death throws of the republic of rome and the Empire is forming.
Which, naturally, will fall eventually and will likely turn into a nationalist nostalgia and inspire a Renaissance.
You should also be aware that most modern authors have 1 boon and 1 bane. Their boon is significantly more evidence than any other surviving roman historian ever. Their bane is that they will have Tue biases of our modern issues.
Its my favorite thing how much historical interpretation gets done through the eyes of a contemporary. Historians love to go on and on about not having bias, but their human so they do. A good example of this is Edward Gibbons “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” which revitalization our modern tradition of Roman History studies. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you’re like me and wanted to study intellectual history) this whole series is often used as a criticism of the British Empire in the 17th century.
Of course a lot of it is good enough roman history, but whole stories within the book are complete fabrications. There is no evidence that they happened to Emperor X or Province Y, but the series of events and the alleged public disapprovals of them do match up with the events of his contemporary political moment for which it would have been illegal for Mr. Gibbon to criticize publicly.
And this means of using nostalgia around a long dead empire to affect contemporary politics is what happened in the Renaissance.
Ada Palmers book she effectively (and very accessibly) argues that the Renaissance was more or less just a massive propaganda campaign since by no measure was the “Renaissance” better or worse than the middle ages. In fact the span of the “renaissance” is so grand that it often includes the middle ages or it doesn’t depending on where you want to believe the renaissance started which is constantly redefined.
I recommend
“SPQR” by Mary Beard for a good comprehensive book on Roman history
If you prefer chronology for some reason
“The origin of empire” by David Potter is really good
Also “Inventing the Renaissance” By Ada Palmer
I went to college for this shit and these books, while very long, do basically smarize everything I learned on these two subjects. So I’ve saved you probably $10,000
Three words: Fat Orange Mussolini.
The US is doing a pretty good job of replicating one era of Roman history…
