In the excerpt below, Baron evaluates Burckhardt's concept of the Renaissance, assessing criticisms of it and outlining two areas of weakness in The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy.
Below, White analyzes Burckhardt's work within the framework of a structuralist theory of historiography. He emphasizes the influence of Arthur Schopenhauer on Burckhardt's thought.
In the following excerpt, Kerrigan and Braden analyze Burkhardt's understanding of Renaissance individualism and posit that, in Burckhardt's view, the concept of honor provides the only counterbalance to the destructiveness of unbridled individualism.
Originally published as the introduction to an Italian edition of The Cultural History of Greece, the following essay places Burckhardt's book in its contemporary intellectual context.
In the following excerpt, Gilbert describes Burckhardt's intended projects in his early career and one of his early works, The Age of Constantine the Great.
In the excerpt below, Heller describes Burckhardt's approach to original source material, positing an affinity between that employed by the historian and by the poet Goethe.
In the following excerpt, Ferguson, a noted Renaissance historian, describes the structure and argument of Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, and evaluates the continuing validity of Burckhardt's portrait of the age.
Niebuhr, considered one of the most important and influential Protestant theologians in twentieth-century America, is the author of The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (1944) and Christian Realism and Political Problems (1953). In the following excerpt from a review originally published in the Nation in 1943, Niebuhr summarizes Burckhardt's philosophy as an historian and its significance to the modern world.
An American historian, political theorist, novelist, journalist, and lecturer, Kirk was one of America's most eminent conservative intellectuals. His works have provided a major impetus to the conservative revival that has developed since the 1950s. In the following excerpt from a review of Reflections on History, Kirk offers high praise for Burckhardt as a wise and prescient historian.
