Before the establishment of the National Geographic Society in the late 1880s, the American Geographical Society (AGS), established in 1851, was (together with the US Geological Survey), a key institu
This collection of essays adopts a novel, interdisciplinary approach to a diverse group of texts composed in London during the Renaissance. Eight literary scholars and eight historians from two continents have been paired to write companion essays on each text. This original method opens up rich insights into London's social, political, and cultural life which would have eluded members of either discipline working in isolation. 'Theatrical' is taken to be a very flexible term, and is applied to the civic rituals and public spectacles of the capital (for example, the execution of King Charles I) as well as to the elite and popular theatre. The eight texts therefore include historical accounts, political documents and polemical works as well as plays.
From classical antiquity through the Renaissance, rhetoric was the prime vehicle of education in the West and the discipline that prepared students for civic life. With a comprehensiveness drawn from
