A critical reading of both literary and non-literary German texts published between 1490 and
1540 exposes a populist backlash against perceived social and political disruptions the
dramatic expansion of spatial and epistemological horizons and the growth of global trade
networks. These texts opposed the twin phenomena of pluralization and secularization which
promoted a Humanist tolerance for ambiguity boosted globalization and spatial expansion around
1500 and promoted new ways of imagining the world. Part I considers threats to the political
order and the protestations against them above all a vigorous defense of the common good. Part
II traces the intellectual and epistemological upheaval triggered by the spatial discoveries
and the new methods of visual and verbal representation of space. Part III examines the
nationalistic backlash triggered by the rising global trade and related abusive trading
practices and by perceived undue foreign influences. It is the basic premise of this book that
the texts examined here protested the observed disruptions of the status quo and sought to
reestablish a stable imperial order in the face of political and social upheaval and of the
felt cultural decline of the German nation.
