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In the middle of the fourteenth century, a terrible and mysterious plague swept across Europe and Asia. One in every three Europeans died during the five years that it terrified the continents. People tried all sorts of ways to avoid catching the Black Death. They carried flowers, burned incense, fired cannons, and rang church bells. They nailed whole families in their homes to try to keep the disease from spreading. Nothing seemed to help. The death rate continued to mount. Finally the plague ran its course, and people stopped dying in large numbers. But the bubonic plague never went away. Every so often, this painful disease breaks out again. Find out how and where this deadly disease traveled, and whether the chances of survival are any better today than they were so many centuries ago. ... Read more

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Learn about the history of The Bubonic Plague with iMinds insightful knowledge series.
Bubonic plague is widely regarded as being responsible for two of the most infamous plagues in recorded history - the Black Death in the mid-fourteenth century and the great plague of London in 1665.

The causative organism of modern-day plague was discovered independently in 1894 by two bacteriologists: the Swiss born Dr. Alexandre Yersin and Dr. Shibasaburo Kitasato from Japan. Both were conducting research in Hong Kong during the third plague pandemic then occurring in Asia. Kitasato was working with the backing of the British authorities and had access to autopsies of plague victims at Kennedy Town Hospital.

iMinds brings targeted knowledge to your eReading device with short information segmentsto whet your mental appetite and broaden your mind. ... Read more

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"The 1800s were, from Jenner to Pasteur to Koch, the years in which more progress was made in controlling infectious disease than in the previous 10,000, yet at the end of that century Plague swept round the world and killed multitudes as if to admonish us for our arrogance. Most of us today, even students of medical history, have avoided paying heed to that admonishment. Myron Echenberg's excellent scholarship and scientific sophistication oblige us, as we cower under the threat of avian flu, to pay the Third Bubonic Plague pandemic the attention it deserves."
—Alfred Crosby, University of Texas and author of Children of the Sun: A History of Humanity's Unappeasable Appetite for Energy

A century ago, the third bubonic plague swept the globe, taking more than 15 million lives. Plague Ports tells the story of ten cities on five continents that were ravaged by the epidemic in its initial years: Hong Kong and Bombay, the Asian emporiums of the British Empire where the epidemic first surfaced; Sydney, Honolulu and San Francisco, three "pearls" of the Pacific; Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro in South America; Alexandria and Cape Town in Africa; and Oporto in Europe.

Myron Echenberg examines plague's impact in each of these cities, on the politicians, the medical and public health authorities, and especially on the citizenry, many of whom were recent migrants crammed into grim living spaces. He looks at how different cultures sought to cope with the challenge of deadly epidemic disease, and explains the political, racial, and medical ineptitudes and ignorance that allowed the plague to flourish. The forces of globalization and industrialization, Echenberg argues, had so increased the transmission of microorganisms that infectious disease pandemics were likely, if not inevitable.

This fascinating, expansive history, enlivened by harrowing photographs and maps of each city, sheds light on urbanism and modernity at the turn of the century, as well as on glaring public health inequalities. With the recent outbreaks of SARS and avian flu, and ongoing fears of bioterrorism, Plague Ports offers a necessary and timely historical lesson.

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In Suffering in Paradise, Totaro provides a unique and timely discussion of the bubonic plague as it shaped literature in England from 1500 through the first half of the eighteenth century. During this time, the bubonic plague crept not only into bodies, but also into church sermons, medical treatises, royal proclamations and literary lives and works. Within the experience and accounts of bubonic plague, men and women found their own understandings of the body, of the human relationship with nature, and of the degree to which they had faith in their nation and their God. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Can you imagine surving during a time when one third of the population died?
This enlightening research burns like a torch and illuminates one of the darker periods of history.Totaro insightfully details how the horrific plagues of old influenced the literature and challenged the philosphies of their time.Like a great teacher, Totaro offers something for everyone.From the casual reader to the curious scholar, this book, will inform, enlighten, and amaze its reader. Suprisingly, Totaro uncovers new and fascinating information that will certainly provoke interest in all who read it.The mysteries of the past are vividly brought back to life by the author's use of intriguing illustrations, contemporary quotations, and astonishing historical facts.This book's sobering historical lessons seem to awaken us to our vulnerablilites as we witness contemporary reports of outbreaks, drug resistant infections, and biological weapons of mass destruction. We would do well to remember, revisit, and reconsider the lives of those who endured one of the most extraordinary eras through their haunting historical record, which Totaro has so astutely presented in this book.

Suffering In Paradise
Suffering in Paradise, Rebecca Rotaro's brilliant analysis of the bubonic plague in Early Modern England, demonstrates how that devastating disease influenced and articulated to the work of the most important writers of the time:More, Shakespeare, Milton.Rotaro's insightful and fresh readings shed new light on the despair, suffering, hope, and response of the English people during repeated episodes of the plague.The book will be an attractive addition to the library of those who study and teach the history of medicine, those who focus on plague, and the general reader with an interest in the history and literature of the period.

Larry Zaroff, M.D., Ph.D.
Stanford University
Consulting Professor
School of Medicine & Program in Human Biology
Senior Research Scholar   Center for Biomedical Ethics ... Read more

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A history of the bacterial disease of bubonic plague, and of the mortality, distress and panic fear that it caused in the British Isles from The Great Pestilence of 1348 to The Plague of London in 1665, with a brief account of its transient reappearances between 1900 and 1912. Professor Shrewsbury draws on his knowledge as a bacteriologist in describing the way in which the disease was transmitted from the rat, its natural host, to man and emphasizes that the Black Rat was solely responsible for its introduction to the British Isles, and for its spread from one place to another; he is thus able to identify genuine outbreaks of plague from those of other diseases. Among the consequences of the plague which Professor Shrewsbury discusses are its effect upon the growth of population, and on social and economic life, the harsh and useless regulations made in vain efforts to control it, and the collapse of law and order during its great outbursts. ... Read more

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John T. Alexander's study dramatically highlights how the Russian people reacted to the Plague, and shows how the tools of modern epidemiology can illuminate the causes of the plague's tragic course through Russia. Bubonic Plauge in Early Modern Russia makes contributions to many aspects of Russian and European history: social, economic, medical, urban, demographic, and meterological. It is particularly enlightening in its discussion of eighteenth-century Russia's emergent medical profession and public health institutions and, overall, should interest scholars in its use of abundant new primary source material from Soviet, German, and British archives. ... Read more

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This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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In March 2001, the National Institutes of Health issued the following warning: "The number of Web sites offering health-related resources grows every day. Many sites provide valuable information, while others may have information that is unreliable or misleading."Furthermore, because of the rapid increase in Internet-based information, many hours can be wasted searching, selecting, and printing.This book was created for medical professionals, students, and members of the general public who want to conduct medical research using the most advanced tools available and spending the least amount of time doing so. ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (26)

Did not arrive as quickly as I had hoped
I selected rush delivery because I needed this book for class, but it took a regular amount of time to get here. The product was in good shape.

A convincing fictional diary of the Plague of 1665
Thanks to 20th century medical and public health advances, we now know how to prevent, stem, and treat most infectious diseases. Though a few folks may still recall the flu epidemic of 1918, which cost 20 millions lives worldwide and a half million in the United States alone, for most of us living outside the Third World, fear of epidemic has become largely a thing of the past.

But if you wish to glimpse daily life under the threat of impending death by disease (without actually being threatened by it), along with the accompanying grief, despair, depravity, kindness, and courage, Daniel Defoe's "A Journal of the Plague Year" can take you there.

However, Defoe`s classic work is neither a journal nor of the plague year. Rather, it consists of an odd and hardly chronological collection of anecdotes, statistics, and ruminations written by the author of Moll Flanders some fifty years after the Plague of 1665 (when he was but a child of four). While pretending to be a first person eyewitness account of the epidemic, the Journal is in fact convincingly realistic fiction. The author has wisely created a narrator and a literary vehicle that powerfully portrays 17th century London and the agonies of an epidemic that killed more than 100,000 in the city.

Early on, Defoe establishes credibility for his fictional construct by quoting detailed figures (seemingly culled from official documents) on the growing death tolls as the Black Death spread across London. Further, throughout the book he documents the legal measures, such as quarantining households, and describes the medical endeavors to fight the disease and its spread. But more important, having once persuaded the reader of the authenticity of his tale, Defoe gets under the skin of the plague by showing the human suffering and drama it created.

He accomplishes this through his fictional narrator, a bachelor merchant who saunters about London hearing cries of pain, listening to tales of death, observing grief-deranged survivors roaming the streets, and even visiting the mass graves where, under the cover of night, death carts dump their grisly loads.

Also, we are privy to the deliberations of our moralistic but pragmatic narrator--on whether or not to flee London with his brother's family, on predestination and free will, on the quackery and skullduggery that fed on fear and ignorance. This imaginative character's active, intelligent, and detailed surveillance of the epidemic places us in the streets of London and creates a work of lasting vitality.

Through him we see the people's susceptibility to omens, religious superstition, prophets of doom, and astrologers; to quacks, charlatans, and fortune-tellers. We glimpse the duplicity and cowardice of the government and ruling class, who frequently fled London to save their own skins while abandoning their servants to penury and possible infection. We view mountebanks fleecing desperate families, nurses murdering and robbing their lingering patients, and the sick taking their own lives to save themselves a last few hours of pain. But we also are shown acts of great kindness, courage, charity, and love, as well as human ingenuity in service of a will to survive in the face of seeming doom.

Ultimately, the book is perhaps not so much about the plague as about human nature, of which Defoe is a keen observer, showing us that 17th century Londoners are not much different from ourselves. .

But as gloomy as this subject matter may seem, he can present it with a light and often-humorous touch, as in his story of the drunken piper. The beggar had passed out on the street after given an uncustomarily large amount to drink. A second man, thinking the piper a corpse, laid a plague victim beside him for the death cart to retrieve. The piper did not revive until about to pushed into a mass grave. He called out, "Where am I?" The sexton replied, "Why you are in the dead-cart, and we are going to bury you." The piper then asked, "But I ain't dead though, am I?"

Defoe presents the enigmatic narrator as both deeply affected by the suffering and aloof. He roams about London and its environs with seemingly little concern for his own well-being, at times viewing the horrific scenes with passion and compassion, and at other moments from a distant, Archimedean point of intellectual detachment. Along the way we get the narrator's (and, we suspect, the author's) views on religion, criminal justice, public health measures, medicine, government, and economics.

The pragmatism of Defoe's narrator shows through in his discussion of the last. Virtually all commerce came to a halt in the months when the plague ruled. Ships did not dock, shops closed, construction stopped, and economic life was put on hold while death profited. Defoe shows us the repercussions of this economic death--not only the hardship, the admirable efforts of certain government officials to help the needy, and the charity of many--but also how it helped stem the spread of the disease by reducing contact among people.

In the end, it's Defoe's details that win out, making this fictional account read as the intimate first-person portrayal it purports to be: the 200,000 pet dogs and cats rounded up and slaughtered to help prevent the epidemic's spread; the infection and quick death of infants who fed at the breasts of their diseased mothers; the public whippings of those who stole from the dead; the excruciating pain of the swellings brought on by the bubonic plague and the perhaps even more painful attempts by physicians to break the tumors with hot irons. Such details as these, perhaps too realistically rendered for the squeamish, give "A Journal of the Plague Year" an irresistible authority.

However, the whole conceit might have fallen flat had it not been crafted with such a deft, and I think, sly, touch. Defoe's language never flies toward hyperbole, but is grounded in seemingly careful observation--even when the narrator is deeply moved. Defoe's slyness is evident in his narrator often claiming faulty memory or lack of knowledge--"whether he lived or died I don't remember"--which augments the verisimilitude of his highly creative and still haunting work.

Entertaining Historical Work Marred by Lack of Proofreading
I have long wanted to read this classic account of the Black Death in London. Couldn't believe all the typos, which a notice at the beginning attributes to OCR--the pages are scanned rather than typed. The publisher's excuse is they need to keep costs down.Like they couldn't find a graduate student in English or History who wanted to pick up a bit of money proofreading?I would rather pay more for a properly edited book.

Why Teens Should Read This
1.Defoe is fascinating biography subject:
Ian Watt remarked that Defoe "was a hard man who led a hard life: raised as a Dissenter in the London of the Great Plague and Great Fire; enduring Newgate prison and the pillory in bankrupt middle age; working as a secret agent and a scandalous journalist until imprisoned again for debt and treason. Defoe died old, and so may be accounted as a survivor, but he had endured a good share of reality, and his novels reflect that endurance."

2. Observing and personalizing "real world" problems can inspire you to read and enjoy related literature. Thank G-d the H1N1 Flu causes mild to moderate symptoms despite its fierce contagiousness. However, I'm sure most of your mothers and others have made anxiety ridden phone calls to the pediatrician. We live in a Global Village. How long is it before one rural Chinese farmer falls ill and China Air cancels flights out of Beijing. Even the Plague, today having a mere 15% mortality rate down from the Medieval high of 75% can still wreak havoc. And it is a fact that the recent completion of the Kinshasa Highway enabled the transmission of AIDS epidemic throughout Africa. Is it so far-fetched?Someone collapses in Cape Town, schools close across Europe, ports are inspected along the Atlantic shore, riots break out surrounding Kaiser-Permanente, Japanese civilians receive face masks from their government... DeFoe's London is a microcosm of our world.

3. In order for you to like reading, you have to be exposed to a variety of genres to help discover your own interests. The Journal of the Plague Year is a great introduction to Historical Fiction, or even Literary Journalism-- even if it was written so early that the genre would not yet be coined for a few hundred years. After all, Defoe is credited with being one of the earliest innovators of the novel itself. I personally love the genre, it makes me fell like I'm time traveling, sans jet lag. Historical fiction by the way, is also popular genre for mini-series, HBO is particularly good for shows like Deadwood, Rome, John Adams, and The Tudors.

Why Teens Should Read This
1.Defoe is fascinating biography subject:
Ian Watt remarked that Defoe "was a hard man who led a hard life: raised as a Dissenter in the London of the Great Plague and Great Fire; enduring Newgate prison and the pillory in bankrupt middle age; working as a secret agent and a scandalous journalist until imprisoned again for debt and treason. Defoe died old, and so may be accounted as a survivor, but he had endured a good share of reality, and his novels reflect that endurance."

2. Observing and personalizing "real world" problems can inspire you to read and enjoy related literature. Thank G-d the H1N1 Flu causes mild to moderate symptoms despite its fierce contagiousness. However, I'm sure most of your mothers and others have made anxiety ridden phone calls to the pediatrician. We live in a Global Village. How long is it before one rural Chinese farmer falls ill and China Air cancels flights out of Beijing. Even the Plague, today having a mere 15% mortality rate down from the Medieval high of 75% can still wreak havoc. And it is a fact that the recent completion of the Kinshasa Highway enabled the transmission of AIDS epidemic throughout Africa. Is it so far-fetched?Someone collapses in Cape Town, schools close across Europe, ports are inspected along the Atlantic shore, riots break out surrounding Kaiser-Permanente, Japanese civilians receive face masks from their government... DeFoe's London is a microcosm of our world.

3. In order for you to like reading, you have to be exposed to a variety of genres to help discover your own interests. The Journal of the Plague Year is a great introduction to Historical Fiction, or even Literary Journalism-- even if it was written so early that the genre would not yet be coined for a few hundred years. After all, Defoe iscredited with being one of the earliest innovators of the novel itself. I personally love the genre, it makes me fell like I'm time traveling, sans jet lag. Historical fiction by the way, is also popular genre for mini-series, HBO is particularly good for shows like Deadwood, Rome, John Adams, and The Tudors. ... Read more

Product Description
Mr. Feldinger is an adept and engaging story-teller, bringing to life a murderous government plot against LA's Latino community near the beginning of the 20th century. It's a non-fiction horror story. Worse, he outlines how it could easily happen again.

The story may be nearly a century old, but the villains still exist today, namely government agencies and a self-serving health care system. LA city health officers willfully misdiagnosed the first cases of bubonic plague in a Latino neighborhood. They were supported and encouraged by bigoted, greedy politicians. As a result numerous lives were lost. In at least one case, nearly an entire extended family was wiped out. Their neighborhood was nearly destroyed in an effort to "cleanse" the area of the disease they denied was there- the bubonic plague.

The book is a gripping account of what does happen, and what should absolutely not happen, in the case of a deadly epidemic. Feldinger breathes life back into people long dead- the villains and the heroes- of this story that has never been fully told. ... Read more

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Looking at the bubonic plague in colonial Senegal between 1914 and 1945, the author examines how colonizer and colonized changed their perceptions of the epidemic over time. ... Read more

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The Strangely Romantic History and Sad Death of Miss Agnes Arnold, the Adopted Daughter of the Late Samuel Arnold, of This City.

Wealthy, Lovely, and Engaged to Be Married, Yet This Devoted Girl Volunteered to Go and
Nurse Yellow Fever Patients at Shreveport, Louisiana.

After Three Weeks of Incessant Labor She Met with a Painful and Fatal Accident.

_She Died in the Hope of a Blessed Immortality_.

Her intended husband, who had followed her to Shreveport, had already died, and the two were buried side by side.

Terrible Scenes during the Plague.

By: Wesley Bradshaw

Story begins...

ANGEL AGNES

May God protect you, reader of this book, from all manner of sickness; but above all, from that thrice dreaded pestilence, yellow fever. Of all the scourge ever sent upon poor sinful man, none equals in horror and loathsomeness yellow fever. Strong fathers and husbands, sons and brothers, who would face the grape-shot battery in battle, have fled dismayed from the approach of yellow fever. They have even deserted those most dear to them. Courageous, enduring women, too, who feared hardly any other form of sickness, have been terrified into cowardice and flight when yellow fever announced its awful presence.

Such was the state of affairs when, a short time ago, the startling announcement was made that yellow fever had broken out in Shreveport, Louisiana, and that it was of the most malignant type. At once everybody who could do so left the stricken city for safer localities, and, with equal promptitude, other cities and towns quarantined themselves against Shreveport, for fear of the spread of the frightful contagion to their own homes and firesides.

Daily the telegraph flashed to all parts of the land the condition of Shreveport, until the operators themselves were cut down by the disease and carried to the graveyard. Volunteers were then called for from among operators in the places, and several of these, who came in response to the call, though acclimated, and fanciedly safe, took it and died. Then it was that terror really began to take hold of the people in earnest. A man was alive and well in the morning, and at night he was a horrible corpse........ ... Read more

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When government officials have to deal with major public health dangers, they often take excessive--even totalitarian--measures. The results of their efforts can be more damaging than any disease. This book takes the first detailed look at the hushed-up story of the L.A. bubonic plague outbreak. It's a story that's been covered up for more than 70 years. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Scandalously good!
Mr. Feldinger is an adept and engaging story-teller, bringing to life a murderous government plot against LA's Latino community near the beginning of the 20th century.It's a non-fiction horror story. Worse, he outlines how it could easily happen again.

The story may be nearly a century old, but the villains still exist today, namely government agencies and a self-serving health care system. LA city health officers willfully misdiagnosed the first cases of bubonic plague in a Latino neighborhood.They were supported and encouraged by bigoted, greedy politicians.As a result numerous lives were lost.In at least one case, nearly an entire extended family was wiped out.Their neighborhood was nearly destroyed in an effort to "cleanse" the area of the disease they denied was there- the bubonic plague.

The book is a gripping account of what does happen, and what should absolutely not happen, in the case of a deadly epidemic.Feldinger breathes life back into people long dead- the villains and the heroes- of this story that has never been fully told

"Heroes" over history
Feldinger's book illuminates a relatively unknown outbreak of pneumonic plague in early 20th century Los Angeles.Where this book really shines is in its source scholarship and extensive quotes from primary sources.Feldinger does a good job in helping us understand how this outbreak could occur and (even more interestingly) how Los Angeles civic authorities at all levels acted in concert to keep the citizens of Los Angeles almost completely ignorant of the danger they faced.

Where I think this book loses its way is in its need to find heroes and villians in a situation that could also be explained by a people acting largely in their own self intest.Early in the book, Feldinger himself admits how hard he had to look to find a "hero" in the events in question.This is not to say that the schoolteacher he ends up lionizing did not act with empathy and intelligence, but rather that once you have a hero you have to have villians.And Feldinger sees vilians everywhere from public health officials, to the city council and to businessmen who respond to the epidemic by firing all their "Mexican" labor.In trying to make his book seem current, Feldinger also litters the piece with references to Hurrican Katrina, Vietnam and quite tellingly to the Swine Flu "scare" of the 70s.I encourage the interested reader to examine the chapter on the Ford Administration's response to the Swine Flu outbreak in Laurie Garrett's "The Coming Plague" to see how much more nuanced the government's thinking was around Swine Flu than Feldinger seems to think it was.Perhaps if Feldinger had read this assessment, he might have attributed less black and white motivations to the participants.

While I would have preferred a more scholarly and less journalistic approach, I recommend Feldinger's book to any reader interested in the ways people and governments react to the outbreak of a deadly disease prior to our own "information age".

Time for the Truth
Feldinger mines history with mordant wit, strikes the mother lode of deceit and official cover-up, and touches raw nerve in this dandy read.A journalist, Feldinger isn't out to make friends, especially of the Los Angeles Times scions. The truth is unimaginable, but the author backs up his power-packed story with considerable evidence, from both private sources and public domain. Feldinger's done his homework, and the results carry a sobering punch. This credible work profiles an event that stretches man's inhumanity to the limit. It couldn't have happened, but it did. Readers are left humbled by knowing Black Plague, hoping never to experience it. We are compelled to acknowledge mortality.The book holds interest because it speaks truth - there's no doubt the plague will return. The truth frightens but makes good reading.

A primer of how not to protect a population, "A Slight Epidemic" is of a piece with sad chapters of US history and great exposes of hard journalism.Through his fine book Frank Feldinger has provided a public service.

Must Read
Weak, self-serving, irresponsible representatives ignore their mandate to protect the public in favor of institutional loyalty.Decades ago, a deliberate coverup cost people their lives, citizens their homes, threatened a huge swath of the population.This well-researched, impeccably written, compelling narrative is jaw-dropping.In the wake of Katrina, with the threat of a public health disaster like bird flu looming, every citizen should be aware of what happened then and how government incompetence and malfeasance threatened the lives of so many people.A must-read.

Bubo Redux!
Great...another egregious government cover-up, but by page two I was wishing for a bag of popcorn, instantly engaged and casting a future screenplay in my head!Corruption, control, greed and ego aredisgusting traits I'd rather not attribute to my country, yet I can't help feeling ecstatic when the covers get ripped off the bed, exposing a self-righteous and fetid government mattress.Author Feldinger made me care about something unpleasant and disturbing when it would be so much easier not to notice. (This guy clearly does his homework and could turn anyone listening around a campfire into an instant mouthbreather!) His style is elegant, wry, and dignified; he seems to have great respect for his readers.I'm not sure if Feldinger writes in ink or chainsaw oil, but either way...it's mightier than the sword!Intelligent and incredibly well-paced. A terrifying must! ... Read more

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Chapters: Hans Holbein the Younger. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 257. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1498between 7 and 29 November 1543) was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history of book design. He is called "the Younger" to distinguish him from his father, Hans Holbein the Elder, an accomplished painter of the Late Gothic school. Born in Augsburg, Holbein worked mainly in Basel as a young artist. At first he painted murals and religious works and designed for stained glass windows and printed books. He also painted the occasional portrait, making his international mark with portraits of the humanist Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. When the Reformation reached Basel, Holbein worked for reformist clients while continuing to serve traditional religious patrons. His Late Gothic style was enriched by artistic trends in Italy, France, and the Netherlands, as well as by Renaissance Humanism. The result was a combined aesthetic uniquely his own. Holbein travelled to England in 1526 in search of work, with a recommendation from Erasmus. He was welcomed into the humanist circle of Thomas More, where he quickly built a high reputation. After returning to Basel for four years, he resumed his career in England in 1532. This time he worked for the twin founts of patronage, Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell. By 1535, he was King's Painter to King Henry VIII. In this role, he produced not only portraits and festive decorations but designs for jewellery, plate, and other precious objects. His portraits of the royal family and nobles are a v...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=48321 ... Read more