Abby Epplett, Historian

I recently finished reading Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age by Ada Palmer published by University of Chicago Press in 2025 and rightful given a spot on the Best Books of 2025 list compiled by The New Yorker . At 768 pages, this dense yet entertaining book required nearly 20 hours of reading time and gave me a better understanding of the Renaissance, European history, ethics, and modern historical research. While not for the faint of heart and occasionally repetitive, this book is a one-stop-shop as an introduction to the time period and would be an excellent textbook for honors college undergraduates. The follow review gives only a taste of the full book.

While gardening is not a skill typically associated with high fantasy literature, it was one of Sam Gamgee’s many talents. At the end of the scene in the Green Dragon in Book I, Chapter 1 “The Shadow of the Past” , the reader glances into Sam’s mind to learn that “there was a lot to do up in the Bag End garden… The grass was growing fast.” This short line references a continental divide in linguistics, European culture from the medieval period to the present, the politics of decolonization lawns, and environmental science, all of which I will unpack in this essay.