Engines of the Imagination

Reviews / Votes

"This is a magisterial work of myth-busting, and a marvellous demonstration of how art and literature may be used to reanimate the material imagination of an historical period. The old idea of the Renaissance as a pretechnological pause, or paradise, is gone for good." - Steven Connor, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK

"Jonathan Sawday has written another big, beautiful, brilliant book that will change the way we all see (and hear) the Renaissance." - Gary Taylor, Florida State University, USA

"This is a brilliant achievement... It has huge intellectual and imaginative range and is written with great vitality... This could be the book of the decade in Renaissance Studies."- Neil Rhodes, University of St Andrews, UK

"Jonathan Sawday's pioneering and thoughtful work can change the course of the study of the Early Modern period... This illuminating book enlarges our sense of the Renaissance, redirects our focus, and shows us a world elsewhere we have not seen before." - Arthur Kinney, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA

'Engines of the Imagination offers a fascinating picture of Renaissance encounters with technology. Engaging and entertaining, Sawday's book will become required reading for all students of the period'. - Mary Poovey, New York University, USA

"While few books can truly lay claim to the achievement of crossing disciplinary boundaries, Sawday's impressive Engines of the Imagination must certainly be numbered as one of them." - The British Society for Literature and Science

'Jonathan Sawday's immensely enjoyable and learned Engines of the Imagination is...a careful examination of the literal and figurative function of all manner of 'engines' prior to their coding as 'automatic', necessarily 'inorganic','inhuman'machines.' - Julian Yates, The Review of English Studies

"Sawday's book is consistently engaging, insightful, and suggestive" - Stephen B. Dobranski, Studies in English Literature 1500-1900

'...immensely enjoyable and learned... this is a fine book, written to appeal to 'the great variety of readers', as the phrase goes, or, at least to a greater variety than is sometimes usual. It will be highly useful to advanced undergraduates, graduate students, as well as academic staff. It is also a pleasure to read and a book to which I expect to return.' - Julian Yates, Review of English Studies 'This is a magisterial work of myth-busting, and a marvellous demonstration of how art and literature may be used to reanimate the material imagination of an historical period. The old idea of the Renaissance as a pretechnological pause, or paradise, is gone for good.' - Steven Connor, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK

'Jonathan Sawday has written another big, beautiful, brilliant book that will change the way we all see (and hear) the Renaissance.' - Gary Taylor, Florida State University, USA

'This is a brilliant achievement ... It has huge intellectual and imaginative range and is written with great vitality ... This could be the book of the decade in Renaissance Studies.' - Neil Rhodes, University of St Andrews, UK

'Jonathan Sawday's pioneering and thoughtful work can change the course of the study of the Early Modern period ... This illuminating book enlarges our sense of the Renaissance, redirects our focus, and shows us a world elsewhere we have not seen before.' - Arthur Kinney, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA

'Engines of the Imagination offers a fascinating picture of Renaissance encounters with technology. Engaging and entertaining, Sawday's book will become required reading for all students of the period.' - Mary Poovey, New York University, USA

'While few books can truly lay claim to the achievement of crossing disciplinary boundaries, Sawday's impressive Engines of the Imagination must certainly be numbered as one of them.' - The British Society for Literature and Science




'...highly useful to advanced undergraduates, graduate students, as well as academic staff. It is also a pleasure to read and a book to which I expect to return.' -

Julian Yates, The Review of English Studies"Sawday's book is consistently engaging, insightful, and suggestive. He carefully grounds his broad cultural analysis with discerning readings of individual texts, and in places he helpfully pursues the implications of his findings by glancing at techology in our modern world."

-- Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 49, No. 2, 2009

"Engines of the Imagination tackles a broad range of material in an imaginative and creative way."--Michael Edwards, Jesus College, Cambridge, UK