Ayesha Ramachandran is assistant professor of comparative literature at Yale University.
"The book's impressive payoff lies in its new and often thrilling
readings of a wide range of well-loved and much-studied early
modern texts. Attending to metaphysics rather than mechanics,
Ramachandran argues that early moderns turned to the imagination to
meet the challenge of conceiving the newly available world as a
whole rather than a motley collection of parts."--Modern Philology
"Ramachandran lays out her argument and buttresses it through a
series of five case histories sandwiched between a brief
introduction and even shorter conclusion. As in all good
sandwiches, the bread is fine but the really good stuff is in the
middle....As might be expected of a work of such scope, The
Worldmakers is not an easy read; it requires many readings to fully
appreciate the riches it has to offer. To return to the sandwich
analogy for a second, a single bite may feel like too much, more
than one can comfortably chew. But with each layer offering a
completely different dimension of flavour and texture, one really
does need to read all the parts lest they miss certain elements
altogether."--British Society for Literature and Science Reviews
"The Worldmakers is an impressive, wide-ranging, beautifully
researched book with a skillfully articulated argument about a
momentous shift in 'global imaginings' in early modern thought and
literature. The topic is one that could easily become vague and
elusive, but Ramachandran succeeds time and time again in giving it
clear focus and definition. In the process, she also makes
genuinely fresh, compelling critical statements about some major,
much-studied texts and authors."--Gordon Braden, University of
Virginia "The Worldmakers makes a powerful intervention into the
early modern literary study of epic poetry and essayistic and
philosophical prose; into conceptions of 'world' within those
genres as well as in the Western history of ideas; into conceptions
of modernity governing Western science, philosophy, literature, and
ethics; and, not least, into the postcolonial project of
decentering European culture through a globalized view of the
world. Among recent books on these topics, it joins the fine
company of such works as Roland Greene's Five Words and Timothy
Hampton's Fictions of Embassy. Ramachandran approaches the task
from her own distinctive perspective, based in fine-grained
literary analysis with a firm grasp of cultural and intellectual
history and the theoretical consequences that follow from
juxtaposing texts against the history."--William J. Kennedy,
Cornell University "The Worldmakers is an important book for
modernity. But it is also a consummate, beautiful, and original
study of the Renaissance on its own terms, showing that even in
canonical texts of European humanism, there is much new territory
to be explored."
--Modern Language Quarterly "The Worldmakers is an astonishingly
ambitious book."--Renaissance Quarterly "The Worldmakers
demonstrates how scientific advances in the early modern period
shaped European concepts of God, nation and self. It provides a
fresh perspective from which to evaluate the motivations behind the
worldmaking project, and its ensuing implications for the
epistemology of the modern age. Those interested in the impact of
early modern science on literature and philosophy will find it a
stimulating read."--British Journal for the History of Science
"Anything Ayesha Ramachandran writes is worth reading for her rich
intellectual responses to her topics, for her learning, and for the
elegance of her prose. The Worldmakers is a fruitful, masterful
book."--Spenser Review "The Worldmakers is a lucid, elegant
addition to our understanding of the genealogy of our attitudes to
the globe and to our picture of the history of the geographical and
intellectual culture of the Renaissance."--Journal of Historical
Geography
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