How American was Renaissance England? | Dr Lauren Working

About this episode

How American was Shakespeare’s England? We tend to imagine the English Renaissance as the world of Shakespeare, Elizabeth I, Walter Raleigh and the great voyages of discovery. But what happens when we reverse the direction of travel and ask not simply what England did to the Americas, but what the Americas did to England? In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I talk to historian Dr Lauren Working about her new book A Golden World: How the Americas Transformed Renaissance England. We discuss the extraordinary objects and materials that connected Tudor and Stuart England with the Americas, from pearls, feathers and emeralds to tobacco and beaver fur. We explore the Indigenous knowledge,…