Palgrave Advances offer a series of innovative books that orientate graduate and upper-level students within the current state of a field of study. Bringing together leading international scholars, each text surveys, questions and pushes the boundaries of the discipline. Foregrounding new research, these books seek to map the future direction of the field and as such are invaluable for students, scholars and lecturers. This book is the first comprehensive study of the historiography of the Renaissance since Wallace Ferguson's The Renaissance in Historical Thought of 1948. Taking its departure both from developments in history-writing during the Renaissance itself, and from Jacob Burckhardt's hugely influential and controversial characterization of the Renaissance of 1860, the collection of essays explores recent developments in understandings of the Renaissance from a range of different but interlocking chronological, geographical and disciplinary perspectives. Written by an international team of experts, this book is the essential guide to the modern Renaissance debate.