Heretics and Heroes

The sixth volume of Cahill’s Hinges of History series, on the Renaissance and Reformation together — Michelangelo and Erasmus and Luther in one argument about the period when, on Cahill’s reading, the individual self became the unit that mattered in European thought. It is popular narrative history with a thesis and a point of view rather than a survey, and it is written to be argued with.

Context: Thomas Cahill (1940-2022) wrote six volumes of the Hinges of History series, each on a moment when he judged a culture handed something forward that would otherwise have been lost.

Connections

• A Library to Build Great Americans — the 468-title curriculum this card came from; listed in the Ages 13-99+ band under History.
• Thomas Cahill — the author.
• Renaissance — half of the period the book covers.
• Martin Luther — one of the figures the argument runs through.
• Michelangelo — one of the figures the argument runs through.
• Religion — the frame the history is written in.
• Printing Press — the technology the period runs on.