A worthwhile series
This is the concluding episode of a six-part series called *Renaissance*, although there are only four offered here, and it looks as if each episode has been chopped down from its original 55 minutes to 28 (probably to accommodate college and high school courses). The series was made for PBS sometime in the `eighties, I think. It was at the height of the postmodern critique of white Western culture and knowledge, and there is a bit of white Western defensive anxiety perceptible in Ian Richardson's introductions to the episodes. Nevertheless, it's a well-made portrait of what most mainstream historians regard as the accomplishments of the Renaissance. Very little of what wasn't so accomplished about it is addressed. For example, the series is structured around five archetypal figures: the dissenter, the warrior, the artist, the prince, and the scientist. I couldn't help but wonder: Where is the witch? Or even the witchfinder, if a whole episode on women would be just too much to...
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