“[Thanks to Hankins' text and translation] it is now possible, in a real sense for the first time, for a wide academic audience, ranging from Renaissance specialists to undergraduates, to confront the historian Leonardo Bruni, a fundamental figure in the birth of modern historiography. This volume, and the entire series of which it forms only a part, is a crucial contribution to the prosperity of Renaissance studies today. While Bruni's history is an important source for understanding Bruni's humanism, as well as Florentine humanism more generally in the fifteenth century, its complete translation should expand our understanding of Bruni's importance in European intellectual history beyond the confines of the Baron thesis and the nature of Florentine civic humanism. He should play an equally important role in the history of modern historical writing, on a par with Machiavelli, Bodin and Gibbon. Elegantly translated and modestly priced, Hankins' volume should go a long way to restoring Bruni to the historiographical prominence that he rightly enjoyed in his own time.”
     —Mark Jurdjevic, Sixteenth Century Journal