Our history is sometimes not what we think it is, nor as simple
as it is portrayed. Let me provide one important example and some
commentary around it.
We often think of the Italian Renaissance as the period of time
during which man was at his most creative after a thousand years of
darkness (commonly referred to as the 'Dark Ages') - that
bridge between the Greek and Roman classical eras and the modern
world. Nothing could be further from the truth, but still it
remains the conventional wisdom. Also, not true that the Medieval
Christian world alone was responsible for the greatest advances in
learning and knowledge. Even less true that Italian scholars in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries just simply picked up an original
copy of the ancient works of say, Plato or Aristotle (philosophy),
or Galen (medicine) from their library shelves, bequeathed by one
generation to another.
