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A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an Age |  | Author: William Manchester
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Category: Book
List Price: $15.99
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Seller: atlanta-book-company
Rating:  223 reviews
Sales Rank: 11863
Media: Paperback
Edition: Trade Paperback Edition
Pages: 322
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0316545562
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.21
EAN: 9780316545563
ASIN: 0316545562
Publication Date: June 1, 1993
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
It speaks to the failure of medieval Europe, writes popular historian William Manchester, that "in the year 1500, after a thousand years of neglect, the roads built by the Romans were still the best on the continent." European powers were so absorbed in destroying each other and in suppressing peasant revolts and religious reform that they never quite got around to realizing the possibilities of contemporary innovations in public health, civil engineering, and other peaceful pursuits. Instead, they waged war in faraway lands, created and lost fortunes, and squandered millions of lives. For all the wastefulness of medieval societies, however, Manchester notes, the era created the foundation for the extraordinary creative explosion of the Renaissance. Drawing on a cast of characters numbering in the hundreds, Manchester does a solid job of reconstructing the medieval world, although some scholars may disagree with his interpretations.
Product Description
Chronicles the historical transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and focuses on riveting figures such as Leonardo da Vinci, Lucrezia Borgia, Henry VIII, and others. By the author of Death of a President. Reprint. PW.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 223
 Condescending March 10, 2010
Hristos Voskrese (USA)
Imagine, centuries from now, you are given the opportunity to write a popular history book on Modernism (19th - 20th century). What aspects of the age do you include? Surely, the past two centuries have given what future man may still regard improvements. In the social realm, to use just one example, the abolition of slavery, the granting of suffrage to women, and the recognition of natural freedoms and rights regardless of class or blood, rightly may be called improvements of this age.
Yet, it is the same age that has given us examples of totalitarianism, communism, genocide on unprecedented levels, the devaluation of the human person and the family, the decline of culture into commercialized sterility, and the rise of nihilism. What approach does one take in writing such a book? Can one say of our age: it was a World Lit Only by Enlightenment?
William Manchester gives a book that, while enjoyable to read, sadly offers a simplistic and polarized representation of the late medieval and early Renaissance Age. The thread of William's portrait of the age is not hard to identify. On the one hand there are the faithful (read "superstitious" and "ignorant") Christians, who form the majority and who blindly follow what the Church teaches them regarding their roles and the world around them. Any violence, oppression or prejudice is attributable to their ignorance, which William has no qualms linking with their faith. On the other hand, there are the select few whom Manchester lauds as pure individuals, men of reason, who question the medieval assumptions and who alone merit our recognition as our forebears in knowledge.
This polarized representation does not give an accurate portrait of the age. William excels in viewing the age from the perspective of a secular humanist with Enlightenment thought as his patrimony, but he cannot, without lapsing into condescension and mockery, truly enter into the medieval mind and acknowledge the internal logic that guided it. There is no shortage of medieval scholars who have done just that. I have no problem with William Manchester writing from a secular humanist viewpoint, but the frequent snides about those with whom he disagrees does little to William's credit, and makes otherwise enjoyable reading at times annoying.
Better books have been written on the age, ones in which good and bad are considered together, and the man of the age is not looked down on for being born into his circumstances and living according to the world view in which he was raised. Jacques Le Goff, in his Medieval Civilization: 400-1500, does a finer job in placing the medieval people in the context of barbarian invasion and the movement out of towns and into the country. Important advances were made (as in agriculture) but perhaps not in all the areas considered important by an educated Western person today.
 Yellow journalism as history March 1, 2010
Jurek R. Zarzycki (Fremont, CA United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
William Manchester collects all the anecdotes to support his view of the Middle Ages: it was a terrible time (he defends the now abandoned term "Dark Ages") when nothing of value had happened. According to him, no innovation took place and everyone was backward and brutal. He supports this bleak and inaccurate view through carefully selected tidbits of facts and throws them at the reader without giving a complete picture. This leads to an incomplete understanding of this era and I pity the reader who gets their complete view of the Middle Ages from this book only. This book is VERY misleading and downright dishonest, but aims at sensationalizing and confirmation of the worst stereotypes that exist among the uneducated about the Middle Ages. It's classic yellow journalism masquerading as history.
Overall it's a book to endure for a fanatic of the Middle Ages who wants to fish out some new info or for a person who would like to confirm their preconceptions about "the set back in human history called The Dark Ages".
National enquirer does medieval history February 23, 2010
Kathryn Floyd (Houston, Texas United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
When I pick up a "researched historical" I expect to find factual information and a truly well-researched thesis and presentation. Apparently that was too much to expect from this author. If I want a sensational, fantastical story, I can go straight to the National Enquirer, get my cheap thrills and save some cash.
Interest Quotient doesn't make up for Flaws December 14, 2009
S. G. Fortosis (North Port, Florida)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Manchester is a good writer. I'll grudgingly give him that. However, I wonder exactly what his purpose was in writing the volume? He must have known it would take a beating for its inaccuracies, so he didn't write it for the academics or scholars. I can only conclude that he wrote it as popular history, that is, to entertain the general public. Just the same, though a more casual approach with more entertaining material is justified for a general readership, still these people deserve a book that at least attempts to be truthful. Did he have an agenda? I don't know but it seems so. He skims over some individuals and periods while devoting multiple pages to others. I can't tolerate historians who cover fascinating times so dully that even fellow history buffs can hardly stifle the snores. However, I am picky enough to want reasonable accuracy too. Manchester could have done better.
Waste of paper. November 21, 2009
J. Mckelvy (in between extremes)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book is atrocious. It is almost willfully ignorant about its supposed subject matter, and does little more than repeat long-debunked stereotypes about the "dark ages." I have an MA degree in medieval history, and have taught western civ and world history for eight years. Only mentioned to show that I have some actual qualifications for this opinion.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 223
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