A Tale of Two Books

Consider the opening lines of two books written a century apart about the Italian Renaissance. They vigorously demonstrate how the style of popular historians has changed from pseudo-academic lecturing to one that seeks to involve the reader with the sights, sounds and smells of an era, albeit one that is largely manufactured in the author's own imagination. The other difference between the two books is that only the former is available for the kindle, perhaps because it is an out of copywrite "classic". I know which one I want to read.

Jacob Burckhardt "The Civilisation of the Renaissance"
"This work bears the title of an essay in the strictest sense of the
the word. No one is more conscious than the writer with what limited
means and strength he has addressed himself to a task so arduous...zzzz"

JH.Plumb "The Italian Renaissance"
"The face of medieval Europe was scarred with the ruins of its past. In
Rome itself, the Colosseum housed the barbarous Frangipani and their
armed retainers, greedy, lawless, destructive; the Forum provided a
quarry for churches and rough pasture for the cattle market, and
beneath the broken columns of the temple of Castor and Pollux the
bullocks awaited their slaughter."