Reddit mentions of Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance

Oh, great! Don't know all that much about American colonial history, but I do know a thing or two about early modernity in Europe.

• A great book on English literature/ cultural history is Stephen Greenblatt's Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. It's a very influential study that propelled the 'New Historicism' approach. Tremendous effort!
  
  
• A historian who's work I truly admire is Jonathan Israel. He made an incredible study on the Dutch Republic, but a more general and interesting study is Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752
  
  
• Another book I really enjoyed was Stephen Nadler's A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza's Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age. In this book he's analyzing Spinoza's writings and tying them to the modern age. A very interesting study, also in light of American history as Spinoza's writings (through Locke and Hobbes) were a great influence on the Declaration of Independence.
  
  
• Another author I truly admired, but has unfortunately recently passed away, is Kevin Sharpe. With his Image Wars he researched the importance of images, paintings, portrayals, ... for the leaders / opposition. It primarily focuses on England, but it's a great book that shows the tactics involved that are also used throughout Europe at that time.
  
  
• Lastly, I'd like to suggest Lisa Jardine's Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance, which gives a provocative and challenging account of early modernity. Her thesis is not always that convincing, but it's thought provoking to say the least.
  
  I hope some of my suggestions may be useful to you!