The chapters of this book discuss in differing ways the transition in the second millennium of the Common Era from the Renaissance, through Enlightenment and subsequently, Romanticism, with a focus in Europe and the Pacific from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. The book highlights salient features of each movement, using examples from the lives and works of critical exponents of each – artists, poets, playwrights, philosophers, engineers, navigators, and explorers. The aim has been to impart knowledge of each period, describe characteristics of the way in which the three movements transitioned from one to another through a particular thematic or topical focus, and outline central terms and concepts pertaining to them. In doing so, it is clear that the period of European and Pacific history that spanned the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries brought tremendous change on the human psyche and saw unprecedented development of industry, culture, arts, science and a flowering of the human imagination as well as a strengthening of the human capacity for reason. The Renaissance, and the transition between Enlightenment and Romanticism was indeed, a ‘firstlight’ after the long dark ages in Europe, America and the Pacific West; it provided the impetus for the forces of change that impel progress in the present day. To make ‘observations’ of key figures and texts at various stages and events of the half-millennia in focus is also to reveal the perplexing change, society and human understanding of it was undergoing and to explore critical ideas and inventions of art and science that shaped the modern world.
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