Intelligence Squared

The English Renaissance is often remembered as an age of Shakespeare, exploration and cultural flourishing. But it was also shaped by encounters with the Americas. From tobacco in London playhouses to silver from South America and stories of lost cities of gold, the New World became an increasingly powerful presence in English life and imagination. In this episode, historian Caroline Dodds Pennock speaks with historian Lauren Working about her new book How the Americas Transformed Renaissance England. What did Elizabethans actually know about Mexico, the Amazon rainforest, or the Chesapeake? How did Indigenous people and knowledge enter the art, fashion, and literature of Shakespeare’s time – and at what cost? Drawing on a wealth of overlooked sources, Working explores how the Americas became woven into the fabric of Tudor and Stuart society. In doing so, she offers a fresh perspective on England's so-called golden age, revealing the global exchanges, ambitions and inequalities that helped shape the Englis