Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Boston : Little, Brown, c1992.
Description
From tales of chivalrous knights to the barbarity of trial by ordeal, no era has been a greater source of awe, horror, and wonder than the Middle Ages. In handsomely crafted prose and with the grace and authority of his extraordinary gift for narrative history, William Manchester leads us from a civilization tottering on the brink of collapse to the grandeur of its rebirth, the Renaissance, a dense explosion of energy that spawned some of history's greatest poets, philosophers, and painters, as well as some of its most spectacular villains.
Media reviews
"This is an infuriating book. The present reviewer hoped that it would simply fade away, as its intellectual qualities (too strong a word) deserved.... Manchester makes it clear in the early pages of this Portrait that he had never thought much about the Middle Ages.... Fair enough... But when this
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mind-set unfolds itself through some of the most gratuitous errors of fact and eccentricities of judgment this reviewer has read (or heard) in quite some time, one must protest." Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member A_musing
Rarely has so bad a book been written by a professional historian. We are not talking about run of the mill bad. We are talking about outright horrendous and unredeemable.
Manchester's failure to footnote helps hide just how bad it is, since it spares him an easy check on his mangling of sources.
Let me add some examples of particularly attrocious errors (ignoring the salacious here and just focusing on places where he briefly ventures into an actual bit of historical analysis): Manchester refers to medieval Popes as "infalliable". The doctrine of infalliability was adopted in the 19th century and projecting it back a thousand years in history is a good way to show he doesn't understand the debates over Papal power versus that of the Counsel and Patricarch. Likewise, Manchester talks about the lack of medieval journeys to foreign lands, demonstrating a failure to understand any of the medieval migrations, the Viking explorations and conquests, the many pilgrimages, the crusades... and all the other journeys that made medieval society a society and that bound together these cultures he looks to deal with in broad generalities. Many other examples are explored in other reviews, there's no point to cataloging them here. I note that in the Amazon reviews, one person undertook to catalogue errors on the first page, and goes on for some time.
If you want salacious details, read pornography instead. It will be more honest. And possibly more scholarly.
Manchester's failure to footnote helps hide just how bad it is, since it spares him an easy check on his mangling of sources.
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This book collects a variety of out-of-date mythologies about late medieval life and gleans from them the most salacious details, never taking any juicy rumor with a grain of salt or checking its source. If it's a juicy rumor, it must be true - history as written by a malicious village gossip. Let me add some examples of particularly attrocious errors (ignoring the salacious here and just focusing on places where he briefly ventures into an actual bit of historical analysis): Manchester refers to medieval Popes as "infalliable". The doctrine of infalliability was adopted in the 19th century and projecting it back a thousand years in history is a good way to show he doesn't understand the debates over Papal power versus that of the Counsel and Patricarch. Likewise, Manchester talks about the lack of medieval journeys to foreign lands, demonstrating a failure to understand any of the medieval migrations, the Viking explorations and conquests, the many pilgrimages, the crusades... and all the other journeys that made medieval society a society and that bound together these cultures he looks to deal with in broad generalities. Many other examples are explored in other reviews, there's no point to cataloging them here. I note that in the Amazon reviews, one person undertook to catalogue errors on the first page, and goes on for some time.
If you want salacious details, read pornography instead. It will be more honest. And possibly more scholarly.
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LibraryThing member staffordcastle
If I could give this book less than half a star, I would. It is extremely popular, and has had many re-printings, probably because it is very readable. However, the author is not an expert on the period (his specialization is early 20th c, J.F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill & H.L. Mencken), he doesn't
One example: Quoting Holinshed, who spoke of "the filthie sin of lechery and fornication, with abominable adulteries, speciallie in the king," Manchester decides this must apply to Edward VI, that poor invalid, governor-ridden boy who probably was never alone even in the loo, and certainly never had the opportunity for lechery! 'Nuff said.
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like the period, but he has a morbid fascination with it. Inaccuracies abound; the author makes many errors of fact, assumptions, and sweeping generalizations. in fact, he is fairly clueless about the period. He says in the first paragraph of the introduction that he only used secondary sources; this is a major defect.One example: Quoting Holinshed, who spoke of "the filthie sin of lechery and fornication, with abominable adulteries, speciallie in the king," Manchester decides this must apply to Edward VI, that poor invalid, governor-ridden boy who probably was never alone even in the loo, and certainly never had the opportunity for lechery! 'Nuff said.
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LibraryThing member StephenPlotkin
It is not very often that I feel compelled to apologize for owning a book. I first saw this book in my mother's library. She was an autodidact, with the tendency to indiscriminate but frequently serendipitous reading that characterizes the self-taught. So I took her possession of the book as
I should have read a few reviews. It isn't the writing that makes this a staggeringly bad book: rather the opposite, really. Manchester is the Mrs. Mortimer (q.v.) of Medieval Europe. In just the first 20 pages I came across a round dozen half-truths, invidious comparisons, and purely wrong statements. Nor are these the simplified details and telescoped chronologies of a popular historian; they are at the rotten core of this quixotically disagreeable project.
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basically a recommendation. Besides I know and use Manchester's Death of a President in a professional capacity, and I consider it a responsible, thoroughly researched text, even if its concept has always seemed a little odd to me. Also I think Manchester writes well.I should have read a few reviews. It isn't the writing that makes this a staggeringly bad book: rather the opposite, really. Manchester is the Mrs. Mortimer (q.v.) of Medieval Europe. In just the first 20 pages I came across a round dozen half-truths, invidious comparisons, and purely wrong statements. Nor are these the simplified details and telescoped chronologies of a popular historian; they are at the rotten core of this quixotically disagreeable project.
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LibraryThing member JFCooper
This is the worst history I have ever read. Manchester indulges in unsupported conclusions, fails to document his sources, and commits the Historian's cardinal sin. He judges the past based on present-day values.
This is an excellent example of how NOT to write history.
This is an excellent example of how NOT to write history.
LibraryThing member guenievre
If I could give this book 0 stars, I would - I can't bring myself to get rid of it, because someone else might pick it up and think it was accurate.
AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
LibraryThing member mrtall
Ah, Medieval Man! Let’s see what he’s up to (at least according to William Manchester’s account of him in A World Lit Only by Fire).
He rises in the morning, along with a posse of his inbred relations, from his lice-ridden communal bed. He’s too poor and stupid to have a blanket, of course.
At some point, our antihero must muck about on the farm a bit (although Manchester doesn’t get his authorly hands dirty with details of this), and he's got to set aside an hour or two (although he has no concept of time, of course) to rut with a goodly selection of the local maidens, matrons and nuns, but mostly he screws up his meager powers of mind to focus really, really hard on believing -- in the most literal and unquestioning detail -- every last iota of the indoctrination he's received from the evil hypocritical irrational venomous gluttonous venial lecherous clergy down at the local cathedral. (By the way: how did that glorious cathedral, that monument to the soaring of man’s spirit to seek to meet the Eternal, that landmark that still stands and draws simpletons in their thousands and millions – how did it get there, when it could only have been constructed by the hairless apes of the Dark Ages? You’ve got me, and you’ve certainly got Manchester, because he’s fresh out of explanations. Must have been dropped in by aliens.)
Look, I could go on with this – but there’s no point. This is a terrible, ridiculous book; it’s the first example I will heretofore cite of what C S Lewis termed ‘chronological snobbery’, i.e. the total inability to accept that people of an earlier time might have had thoughts and values and mores of their own that are different from, and not necessarily inferior to, our own.
Manchester is a vivid and skilled writer, but he lacks entirely the imagination and empathy needed to understand his subject in this book, and he's clearly obsessed with his own status as a 'rational' 'humanistic' intellectual 'hero' in the mold of Erasmus.
Not only not recommended: please avoid this book entirely.
He rises in the morning, along with a posse of his inbred relations, from his lice-ridden communal bed. He’s too poor and stupid to have a blanket, of course.
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He wipes away sufficient grime from his eyes to open them, and looks out upon the same dreary vista that has assaulted his eyes on each and every day of his life so far – and the one he’ll witness every day hereafter, because we know that no medieval man, bar a few dissolute nobles, ever goes anywhere. At some point, our antihero must muck about on the farm a bit (although Manchester doesn’t get his authorly hands dirty with details of this), and he's got to set aside an hour or two (although he has no concept of time, of course) to rut with a goodly selection of the local maidens, matrons and nuns, but mostly he screws up his meager powers of mind to focus really, really hard on believing -- in the most literal and unquestioning detail -- every last iota of the indoctrination he's received from the evil hypocritical irrational venomous gluttonous venial lecherous clergy down at the local cathedral. (By the way: how did that glorious cathedral, that monument to the soaring of man’s spirit to seek to meet the Eternal, that landmark that still stands and draws simpletons in their thousands and millions – how did it get there, when it could only have been constructed by the hairless apes of the Dark Ages? You’ve got me, and you’ve certainly got Manchester, because he’s fresh out of explanations. Must have been dropped in by aliens.)
Look, I could go on with this – but there’s no point. This is a terrible, ridiculous book; it’s the first example I will heretofore cite of what C S Lewis termed ‘chronological snobbery’, i.e. the total inability to accept that people of an earlier time might have had thoughts and values and mores of their own that are different from, and not necessarily inferior to, our own.
Manchester is a vivid and skilled writer, but he lacks entirely the imagination and empathy needed to understand his subject in this book, and he's clearly obsessed with his own status as a 'rational' 'humanistic' intellectual 'hero' in the mold of Erasmus.
Not only not recommended: please avoid this book entirely.
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LibraryThing member folo01
Outdated ideas and sheer foolishness, so well written that you would just like to horsewhip him. The SCA of historical non-fiction!
LibraryThing member KLmesoftly
If I had to describe this book in one word alone, I'd have to choose "narrow-minded." Manchester is narrow-minded in the sense that he refuses to think of those living during the Middle Ages as having any sort of variety of temperament or belief--he speaks constantly in terms of "the Medieval man"
Still, it's an interesting read, if you don't mind doing your homework afterward and realizing that Manchester chooses to simply ignore any evidence of progress or creativity which conflicts with his thesis. I keep it around as a "don'ts" list for use in my own sholarship.
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as though he were one being. It is possible to discuss trends without generalizing in such an intellectually dishonest way. Still, it's an interesting read, if you don't mind doing your homework afterward and realizing that Manchester chooses to simply ignore any evidence of progress or creativity which conflicts with his thesis. I keep it around as a "don'ts" list for use in my own sholarship.
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LibraryThing member richardderus
My daughter brought this book to my attention about 10 years ago. "WHAT?!? You haven't read this?!? Here!" with a forceful thrust, causing the book to thump into my chest rather painfully. (The bruises have since healed.)
Since that copy, I have given to others eleven more; I seem to be able to
Uh-huh. As we see, that resolve is doomed. I'm sending this one to that soldier who wanted history books. He'll like this one, I bet!
It's a leap of imagination that I feel 21st-century people have small success at making, but the time when the world was lit only by fire didn't end until late in the 19th century. No flipping switches for instant light. No reading lamp that just needs a little flick to provide bright, shadowless (unless you sited it in a funny place) light for as long as you like. No street illumination worth a damn.
A world of shadows. A world of unseen details. A world that gave us fabulous artistic achievements, amazing literary joys, and most of our modern ideas about religion, which I for one could do without.
Manchester makes this world shimmer into focus, bronze-gold candleflame coloring each and every idea, achievement, material object he describes. We really see what he's talking about through their eyes, if we possess even a hint of imagination.
I love this book, and I think everyone in the least bit interested in history should read it because it's beautifully written and conceived. It's a pleasure to pass it on to another initiate. I hope he falls in love the way I did. Please try it. It's worth your time to sink without a ripple into a world long vanished.
Since that copy, I have given to others eleven more; I seem to be able to
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keep the book for about six months before someone just *has* to read it and *now*, so out it goes again. Weeks go by, and I fretfully search the used bookeries for another copy; always one shows up, usually in very good to unread condition (philistines! Imagine having this book and not reading it!), and spend the buck or so to bring it home *for the last time* as I will keep *this* one forever.Uh-huh. As we see, that resolve is doomed. I'm sending this one to that soldier who wanted history books. He'll like this one, I bet!
It's a leap of imagination that I feel 21st-century people have small success at making, but the time when the world was lit only by fire didn't end until late in the 19th century. No flipping switches for instant light. No reading lamp that just needs a little flick to provide bright, shadowless (unless you sited it in a funny place) light for as long as you like. No street illumination worth a damn.
A world of shadows. A world of unseen details. A world that gave us fabulous artistic achievements, amazing literary joys, and most of our modern ideas about religion, which I for one could do without.
Manchester makes this world shimmer into focus, bronze-gold candleflame coloring each and every idea, achievement, material object he describes. We really see what he's talking about through their eyes, if we possess even a hint of imagination.
I love this book, and I think everyone in the least bit interested in history should read it because it's beautifully written and conceived. It's a pleasure to pass it on to another initiate. I hope he falls in love the way I did. Please try it. It's worth your time to sink without a ripple into a world long vanished.
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LibraryThing member auldtwa1
It is useful as a compendium of every stereotype you can think of about the Middle Ages, most of them wrong
LibraryThing member Cygnus555
Constantly amazed by the divergent opinions on the same topic! You have to love it! I thought this book was interesting... Now I hear that it is full of half-truth!
Perhaps it is good that I'm not a History major and I blithely enjoyed the book. I'm sure if I read a book that was a poor
Perhaps it is good that I'm not a History major and I blithely enjoyed the book. I'm sure if I read a book that was a poor
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representation of my profession, I would be angry too! I'm glad to see the well rounded reviews here. Show Less
LibraryThing member JHemlock
What a terrible book. I don't know who or how the man who wrote this even claims to be a historian. This volume is a great example and/why people hate reading history. The bias tone is so overt and blatant that it smells. It is quite obvious that Manchester is talking out of his rear and has no
Asbridge, Jones and Bauer are highly recommended writers in regards to History. They crush anything this writer has done. Asbridge is great for the Crusades, Jones is simply unstoppable in regards to general English History, and Bauer is probably the most well rounded historian I have ever read. Her three part series on the history of the world is ASTOUNDING and so much fun to read.
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clue about facts. Writers like this hurt good historians like, Asbridge, Jones, Bauer and others who dedicate their lives to history. The second half of the book is much better. The chapters on Luther are chaotic and at that point in the book you don't know if or how much smoke the writer is blowing up your rear. The last chapter regarding Magellan is exciting and heartbreaking at the same time. The book gets better after the first part but I think it, as all history, should be taken with a grain of salt. No historical perspective should be taken at face value.Asbridge, Jones and Bauer are highly recommended writers in regards to History. They crush anything this writer has done. Asbridge is great for the Crusades, Jones is simply unstoppable in regards to general English History, and Bauer is probably the most well rounded historian I have ever read. Her three part series on the history of the world is ASTOUNDING and so much fun to read.
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LibraryThing member Heduanna
I had wanted to read this book for years. It's about the Middle Ages! And with such a beautiful title! Had heard reviews saying there are factual errors, but with a time so long gone and so little recorded (I mean, it is called the Dark Ages, after all), you'd have to expect some disagreement. In
I gave up on page 12-13: "In an attempt to link Easter with the Passion, it was scheduled on Passover... The decision had no historical validity, but neither did the event..." I've never heard any definition of Easter that did not include the Passion of Christ (nor does Manchester elaborate on this hypothetical event), and since all four gospels say this coincided with Passover, the scheduling seems much more slam-dunk than scheming.
Also, page 11 "The crafty but benevolent pagan gods - whose caprice and intransigence existed only in the imagination of Christian theologians". How did Manchester read Homer without seeing gods behaving capriciously and intransigently?
More importantly, how could someone so totally ignorant of either the ancient traditions that preceded it, or the modern Christian tradition which succeeded it, ever hope to write a book about the Middle Ages and the Renaissance that came between, especially without taking a very scholarly approach to it?
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exchange for a good overview of the era, I'd call it worthwhile.I gave up on page 12-13: "In an attempt to link Easter with the Passion, it was scheduled on Passover... The decision had no historical validity, but neither did the event..." I've never heard any definition of Easter that did not include the Passion of Christ (nor does Manchester elaborate on this hypothetical event), and since all four gospels say this coincided with Passover, the scheduling seems much more slam-dunk than scheming.
Also, page 11 "The crafty but benevolent pagan gods - whose caprice and intransigence existed only in the imagination of Christian theologians". How did Manchester read Homer without seeing gods behaving capriciously and intransigently?
More importantly, how could someone so totally ignorant of either the ancient traditions that preceded it, or the modern Christian tradition which succeeded it, ever hope to write a book about the Middle Ages and the Renaissance that came between, especially without taking a very scholarly approach to it?
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LibraryThing member dmzach
When we look back at the Renaissance, we're fascinated at the explosion of new ways to learn, think, create. If you were in the midst of it, you were scared to death because it was the end of the world as you knew it. It's a metaphor for our own time, which, if we play our cards right, are the
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early days of a 21st century Renaissance. We will have to relearn how to think, play, learn, create, discover and grow. Best of luck, all. Show Less
LibraryThing member adamvasco
A very readable book. A pity that there are no references and very few footnotes. There is a bibliography however this is mainly of older publications (pre 1970 ) and not recent work.
LibraryThing member WhitmelB
An excellent book, providing a good look at the dark ages without the pedantry of the professional historian and their requirement for endless footnotes, bibliographies. A look at the values of that time without judgments based on today's values.
LibraryThing member ikeman100
This book may be a fun read, but it is very outdated and inaccurate history. Universities with low academic standards will love this one. All historical research done in the last 100 years is ignored. The factual flaws in the first chapter alone were enough to make me check to see if it was
This book should be used as the BAD example when contrasting nonfiction books. I could not finish as it is an insult to real history. Point me to the nearest bonfire, please!
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fiction.This book should be used as the BAD example when contrasting nonfiction books. I could not finish as it is an insult to real history. Point me to the nearest bonfire, please!
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LibraryThing member magicians_nephew
It’s fun sometimes to see a noted historian pushed out of his comfort zone – and sometimes it’s not.
William Manchester was a famous writer about the 20th century having given us books about Douglas MacArthur, Winston Churchill and a fascinating (though flawed) retelling of the death of
So when a friend asked him for a preface for a book about Magellan, Manchester suddenly decided to immerse himself in “the Calamitious 14th century” – Martin Luther and Pope Leo and the Borgias and all the rest.
The result was [A World Lit Only By Fire] and while it’s readable and fun, it ain't very good history. In a lot of places it’s lazy and in other places just plain wrong.
Manchester has a lot to say about the times and the people and his skill as a writer has not deserted him.
He has a lot of fun sticking up for the famous poisoner Lucretia Borgia seeing her as a nice Italian girl who liked sex and didn’t like being told what to do by her brothers. (He retells the wonderful story of how Lucretia, then eight months pregnant, was solemnly pronounced "Virgo Intacto" by the College of Cardinals so she could legally remarry)
He loves to tell the stories about Luther’s scatological obsessions and all of this is more or less in the writings. But he loses his way trying to find a theme to the work, and he commits a few real howlers due to careless reading or liking a good story more than the truthful one.
Good writing but bad scholarship . . . a pity
And don't get me started on the Pied Piper of Hamlin
William Manchester was a famous writer about the 20th century having given us books about Douglas MacArthur, Winston Churchill and a fascinating (though flawed) retelling of the death of
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President Kennedy.So when a friend asked him for a preface for a book about Magellan, Manchester suddenly decided to immerse himself in “the Calamitious 14th century” – Martin Luther and Pope Leo and the Borgias and all the rest.
The result was [A World Lit Only By Fire] and while it’s readable and fun, it ain't very good history. In a lot of places it’s lazy and in other places just plain wrong.
Manchester has a lot to say about the times and the people and his skill as a writer has not deserted him.
He has a lot of fun sticking up for the famous poisoner Lucretia Borgia seeing her as a nice Italian girl who liked sex and didn’t like being told what to do by her brothers. (He retells the wonderful story of how Lucretia, then eight months pregnant, was solemnly pronounced "Virgo Intacto" by the College of Cardinals so she could legally remarry)
He loves to tell the stories about Luther’s scatological obsessions and all of this is more or less in the writings. But he loses his way trying to find a theme to the work, and he commits a few real howlers due to careless reading or liking a good story more than the truthful one.
Good writing but bad scholarship . . . a pity
And don't get me started on the Pied Piper of Hamlin
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LibraryThing member ritaer
Only got a short way into this book. The bias, inaccuracies and narrow focus put me off. I gather from other reviews that it is not well regarded by many historians.
LibraryThing member ben_h
Manchester says at the beginning that this isn't an academic book, and he's not kidding. There are no references at all, so there's no telling which bits of information are supported by evidence and which are just pure speculation. Oddly, there are occasional direct quotes, but unattributed. It's
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an interesting idea, and a great title, but I found reading this to be mostly frustrating. Show Less
LibraryThing member jcvogan1
A nice brief description of the settings and beginnings of the Reformation together with a praising chapter about Magellan.
LibraryThing member doowatt34
Great authorship of history by a non history historian...using mostly overlooked information that you may n-e-v-e-r receive in the classroom. The author does not gloss over history, he just tells it like it is, which may make academicians, and those who lack the ability to accept the truth scringe.
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see more of this review on amazon..... Show Less
LibraryThing member raistlinsshadow
For a book that seems to be a fairly universal reading requirement [I had to read it for AP European History, and I've noted that several other people have had to read it for that class outside of my school], it was a pleasant surprise to find that rather than reading like a history book, it read
The back of the book brags about Manchester's other history books, and from that [along with the two or three pages' worth of acknowledgments and recommended further reading in the back] I can only assume that he does his research well. There is a section about Martin Luther and his reform of the Catholic church that is easily a hundred pages long--a little excessive, I found--that contains minutiae and what can only be described Luther's personality quirks; just before that, there is a section on the Borgia family that I found significantly more interesting--because who doesn't like anecdotes about incestuous Catholic popes and promiscuous queens? In spite of the length of the bit about Luther, Manchester seemed to thoroughly enjoy writing it, and the section about the Borgias stands out to me as some of the better writing in the book--I believe he had a lot of fun writing it.
The book itself is divided into three sections and has no chapters to speak of. The first section contains a little bit of backstory as it were, with some historical snippets relating to the Dark Ages and the mentality surrounding Christendom as it entered the medieval time period and the Renaissance. There is also a brief mention of Ferdinand Magellan and his disproving the medieval notion that the world was flat by circumnavigating the globe. The second section contains both the information about the Borgia family and that of Luther, among other things, though those are the two that stand out the most. The third section goes back to Magellan and tells the tale of his circumnavigation--which, you learn, he did not at first receive any credit at all for. [He was killed in the Philippines, and one of his previously-mutinous captains was the one who sailed the remainder of the fleet back to Spain.] The lack of chapters in each section is made up for by having each section divided up into two to three page subsections.
This book isn't one that I would read for pleasure--the prose, aside from the Borgia stories and those in the third section about Magellan, is rather dry and extremely dense, and the subject matter leads away from the more popular notion of chivalrous knights to the role of the Catholic church in, well, everything. If you have a distinct interest in the Renaissance time period, then I might recommend the book to you, but for those with little more than a passing interest, I'd lead you more along the lines of semiplausible fantasy novels, because they're far more interesting to read. When compared to something like The Scarlet Letter or O Pioneers!, though, this is nothing short of utterly fascinating.
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like a novel. A novel with fairly dense and dry prose, yes, but a novel nonetheless.The back of the book brags about Manchester's other history books, and from that [along with the two or three pages' worth of acknowledgments and recommended further reading in the back] I can only assume that he does his research well. There is a section about Martin Luther and his reform of the Catholic church that is easily a hundred pages long--a little excessive, I found--that contains minutiae and what can only be described Luther's personality quirks; just before that, there is a section on the Borgia family that I found significantly more interesting--because who doesn't like anecdotes about incestuous Catholic popes and promiscuous queens? In spite of the length of the bit about Luther, Manchester seemed to thoroughly enjoy writing it, and the section about the Borgias stands out to me as some of the better writing in the book--I believe he had a lot of fun writing it.
The book itself is divided into three sections and has no chapters to speak of. The first section contains a little bit of backstory as it were, with some historical snippets relating to the Dark Ages and the mentality surrounding Christendom as it entered the medieval time period and the Renaissance. There is also a brief mention of Ferdinand Magellan and his disproving the medieval notion that the world was flat by circumnavigating the globe. The second section contains both the information about the Borgia family and that of Luther, among other things, though those are the two that stand out the most. The third section goes back to Magellan and tells the tale of his circumnavigation--which, you learn, he did not at first receive any credit at all for. [He was killed in the Philippines, and one of his previously-mutinous captains was the one who sailed the remainder of the fleet back to Spain.] The lack of chapters in each section is made up for by having each section divided up into two to three page subsections.
This book isn't one that I would read for pleasure--the prose, aside from the Borgia stories and those in the third section about Magellan, is rather dry and extremely dense, and the subject matter leads away from the more popular notion of chivalrous knights to the role of the Catholic church in, well, everything. If you have a distinct interest in the Renaissance time period, then I might recommend the book to you, but for those with little more than a passing interest, I'd lead you more along the lines of semiplausible fantasy novels, because they're far more interesting to read. When compared to something like The Scarlet Letter or O Pioneers!, though, this is nothing short of utterly fascinating.
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LibraryThing member Aetatis
Good, quick, broad overview of the early renaissance.
LibraryThing member MichaelC.Oliveira
I look forward to listening to this audiobook again in the future. Manchester was a good story teller, but one that may be closer to historical fiction at times.
Language
Original publication date
1992
Physical description
329 p.; 25 inches
ISBN
0316545317 / 9780316545310