How to Do It : Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians  By Rudoph M. Bell

Bestseller lists routinely include advice books instructing
attentive readers on everything from how to create a life of
material and spiritual abundance to how to delay the aging
process. While addressing specific issues, such how-to books
reflect larger social concerns that characterize a
particular time period, and, as such, they can be read as
sociological and historical documents. Rudolph M. Bell,
professor of history at Rutgers University, takes the rare
step of investing the genre--usually considered ephemeral or
dismissed as "fluff"--with just such historical importance.
"How to Do It" offers an insightful, frequently humorous
examination of 16th-century middle-class Italian life as
reflected in the abundance of advice books that circulated
during the period.

"How to Do It" is one of two titles on Renaissance Italy
recently published by the University of Chicago Press. The
other, "The Preacher's Demons: Bernardino of Siena and the
Social Underworld of Early Renaissance Italy," by Franco
Mormando, examines the religious and social attitudes of
late-14th-century Italy through the sermons of one
Franciscan friar.

Apocalypses: Prophesies, Cults, and Millennial Beliefs
Through the Ages"
by Eugen Weber
Plagues, fires from heaven, worldwide computer failure--
apocalyptic visions are nothing new. Indeed, they may well
be a necessary part of life. As historian Eugen Weber
points out, "apocalyptic prophesies are attempts to
interpret the times, console and guide, and suggest the
future."  In Apocalypses: Prophesies, Cults, and Millennial Beliefs Through the Ages, Weber presents a history of end-of-the-worldisms, such as the panics during the sack of Rome in A.D. 410, multiple medieval Second Comings, Yeats's prediction of a "Celtic Armageddon" in 1899, and late-20th-century fears. This is no mere laundry list, however; Weber analyzes each of these beliefs and uses their historical contexts to make them more understandable. Weber's witty prose is tempered by an obvious respect for those with "alternative rationalities." Most readers, however, will enjoy watching these millennial beliefs recur throughout history--and perhaps breathe a sigh of relief. As Weber argues, St. Augustine's advice continues to ring true today: rather than trying to reckon the years before the end of the world, "relax your fingers and give them a little rest."