Turning Modern

Writing in the years of 1516 and 1517, an inhabitant of Cairo likely witnessed firsthand a new era as Egypt lost its independence and was forcibly annexed by the Ottoman Empire. However, he not only observed the collapse of the old regime, but also the toll it took on the people. Sources:Finkel, Caroline. Osman’s Dream: A History of the Ottoman Empire (Basic Books, 2005).Ibn Iyas. An Account of the Ottoman Conquest of Egypt, trans. W.H. Salmon (Royal Asiatic Society, 1921).Ibn Iyas. Journal d’un Bourgeois du Caire, ed. and trans. Gaston Wiet (Libraire Armand Colin, 1945).Lord Kinross. The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire (HarperCollins, 1979).Petry, Carl F. The Mamluk Sultanate: A History (Cambridge University Press, 2022). For more information, transcripts, and ways to support the show, go to ⁠turningmodern.com.

The apprentice of a legendary artist, the first publisher in history to be sued over copyright, and a famous satirist team up to create a provocative work of erotica that enraged the Pope himself.Sources:Romano, Giulio; Raimondi, Marcantonio; Aretino, Pietro; and Waldeck, Count Jean-Frederic-Maximilien. I Modi: The Sixteen Pleasures, An Erotic Album of the Italian Renaissance, trans. and ed. Lynne Lawner (Northwestern University Press, 1988).Talvacchia, Bette. Taking Positions: On the Erotic in Renaissance Culture (Princeton University Press, 1999).Vasari, Giorgi. Vasari’s Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, vol. III, trans. Mrs. Jonathan Foster (London: George Bell & Sons, 1894).Support this project: turningmodern.com/support

A young German herdsman draws crowds while preaching about the evils of the nobility and the clergy and a new world where goods and land are shared. In hindsight, he is offering the elites of the Holy Roman Empire a warning about the near future, but will they listen?Sources:The German Peasants’ War: A History in Documents, eds. Tom Scott and Bob Scribner (Humanities Press International, Inc., 1991).Peters, Margaret E. "Government Finance and Imposition of Serfdom After the Black Death." European Review of Economic History 27.2 (2023): 149-173.Roper, Lyndal. Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War (Basic Books, 2025).Wazer, Caroline. "Medieval Peasants Only Worked 150 Days Due to 'Frequent, Mandatory' Holidays?" Snopes.com (August 31, 2024). Last accessed: 3/28/2026.Wunderli, Richard. Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen (Indiana University Press, 1992).Support this project: turningmodern.com/support

The Kingdom of Kongo establishes a rare partnership with an up-and-coming European power, Portugal, to the point that the King of Kongo and his family embrace Christianity and take Portuguese royal names. However, this partnership will also be ground zero for one of the greatest atrocities in human history.Sources:Almeida, Marcos Abreu Lelitão de. “Speaking of Slavery: Slaving Strategies and Moral Imaginations in the Lower Congo” (Doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University, September 2020).Bosma, Ulbe. The World of Sugar: How the Sweet Stuff Transformed Our Politics, Health, and Environment over 2,000 Years (Harvard University Press, 2023).Etherington, Norman. “Christian Missions in Africa", The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to African Religions, ed. Elias Kifon Bongba (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).Garretson, Peter P. "A Note on Relations Between Ethiopia and the Kingdom of Aragon in the Fifteenth Century." Rassegna di studi etiopici 37 (1993): 37-44.Gondola, Ch. Didier. The History of Congo (Greenwood Press, 2002).Hanno. “Gorilla Warfare.” Lapham’s Quarterly, Last accessed: 3/12/2026. https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/animals/gorilla-warfare Klein, Herbert S. The Atlantic Slave Trade, 2nd edition (Cambridge University Press, 2012).MacGaffey, Wyatt. “Economic and Social Dimensions of Kongo Slavery (Zaire)", Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives, eds. Suzanne Miers and Igor Kopytoff (University of Wisconsin Press, 1977).Russell-Wood, A.R. The Portuguese Empire, 1415-1808: A World on the Move (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998).Thornton, John. A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250-1820 (Cambridge University Press, 2012).___________. Afonso I,  Mvemba a Nzinga, King of Kongo: His Life and Correspondence, trans. Luis Madureira (Hackett Publishing Co., 2023). Support this project: turningmodern.com/contact

A genius prodigy sets out to change the world by resolving all philosophical and religious disputes with one book, his own 900 Theses, and a debate in Rome between Europe's brightest intellectual lights. And he will leave his mark on history, just not in the way he wants...Sources Cited:Hanegraaf, Wouter J. Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2012).Bradatan, Costica. Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of Philosophers (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015).Kristeller, Paul Oskar. Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance (Chatto &Windus, 1965).Mirandola, Pico della. Syncretism in the West: Pico’s 900 Theses (1486), ed. andtrans. S.A. Farmer, 2nd edition (Arizona State University, 2003).____________. “Oration on the Dignity of Man”, trans. Cosma Rohilla Shaizi. Cosma’s Home Page, 21 November 1994. Last accessed 2/23/2025: https://bactra.org/Mirandola/.  Slattery, Luke. “A Renaissance Murder Mystery.” The New Yorker (20 July 2015).Last accessed 2/25/2025: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/a-renaissance-murder-mystery.Stethern, Paul. Death in Florence: The Medici, Savonarola, and the Battle for the Soul of a Renaissance City (Pegasus Books, 2015). The Turning Modern theme is Johann Bach, "No. 14 Chorus" Die Auferweckung des Lazarus by Esther Himmler, Ingeborg Russ, Urs Dettwiler, Bruce Aber, and the Trossingen Soloists' Association and Chorus Community (Original composition: 1773; Recording: 1978-1979).

As the sixteenth century begins following plague, turmoil, traumatic defeats, and the discovery of new continents, people from all faiths feel that the end of history and salvation are at hand while others look to the past to find hope for the future.Reference: Cornell H. Fleischer, "A Mediterranean Apocalypse: Prophecies of Empire in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries" Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 61 (2018): 18-90.Music: Bach, Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir (based on a hymn by Martin Luther) (Performer unknown)

What is Turning Modern, and why the "early modern West"?