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	A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance - Portrait of an Age
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The noted historian and biographer chronicles the collapse of the Dark Ages and the achievements of thought and imagination this constituted the Renaissance, profiling the age's leading figures and noting key events and accomplishments. 60,000 first printing. $60,000 ad/promo.
It speaks to the failure of medieval Europe, writes popular historian William Manchester, this "in the year 1500, afterwards a thousand years of neglect, the roads built by the Romans were still the excellent on the continent." European powers were so absorbed in destroying every other and in suppressing peasant revolts and religious reform this they never quite got all-around to realizing the possibilities of contemporary improvements 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 together with his interpretations.
Customer Reviews
Oh, my word   2010-08-29
By Abagail
This book is awesome. It is well written. Extremely informative and forces you to think. This is definitely not a novel. The scary part of reading this book is the parallels we can draw with our current era. The dark ages were a time dreadful ignorance, censorship, and oppression by the Christian Church in Rome. It took centuries for the reformation to take place. Are we headed into another dark age spurred by the Christian right?
Easy   2010-08-25
By rl120
Unfortunately I had to return this item, but the seller made it fast and easy.
Norman F. Cantor Demolished Manchester Two Decades Ago   2010-08-03
By Michael J. Mcgrath (Madison, WI United States)
A real scholar of the Medieval epoch, Norman F. Cantor, demolished this terrible, slapdash book in the BOOK WORLD section of The Washington Post, published May 3, 1992. Furthermore, pretty much everything ever published by Manchester is merely the pseudo-scholarly rambling opinions of a man favored by the chatterboxes of the once-mighty electronic mass media. The only good thing to be said about Manchester is that at least there is no evidence that he was a plagiarist as were similar authors Doris Kearns Goodwyn or Stephen Ambrose. Reading the dreck of Manchester is useful exercise for learning the style of ignoramuses who insinuate and tread water without explaining or proving anything.
Dreck, though readable, title is the best part   2010-07-07
By Lisa (Oregon)
The only really good thing about this book is the great title. I'm sure that's the only reason it's been around so long. The medieval mind is only a little bit of the book, and is hopelessly generalized, exaggerated, without any attempt to analyze in depth of how it was; it gives neither accurate information nor much of a feel for the era. He repeats some information that is known to be false (possibly due to research done since he wrote the book). Then the bulk of the book is about the Renaissance and Reformation, which was readable enough (keeping the details of Martin Luther readable is not an easy task), although again hopeless generalizations, inconsistencies, and some real whoppers. Finally, there's a smallish section on Magellan that's as unbalanced in admiration for him as the rest of the book is unbalanced in condemnation of the middle ages, catholic church, popes, kings, protestants, etc., within a highly detailed account of his famous trip; not interesting, and I didn't bother to finish the book.
Fun to read, but not as accurate   2010-05-18
By John A. Battle (Tacoma, Washington)
William Manchester is Professor of History Emeritus at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Over the years he has written many popular works on history; this is his contribution to the medieval period. Manchester's particular interest and area of expertise is the life and accomplishments of Ferdinand Magellan. This book sets up the picture of Magellan's world, beginning with the Dark Ages and moving to the beginning of the sixteenth century. He sees in Magellan a symbolic figure--the personification of the end of the medieval mind and the beginning of the modern age. The last major section of the book is about Magellan himself. After discussing the medieval mind in general, Manchester proceeds to show how their world progressed and then came to an end. He traces the major events in Europe over a five hundred-year period. He conceives of the medieval mind as being superstitious, subject to the authority of the church, and full of erroneous ideas. One notes throughout the book a pronounced dislike of religion, especially of Christianity and the institutional church. His sharpest barbs are reserved for popes and Protestant reformers. With the coming of the scientific age, he sees the intellectual demise of religion in general and Christianity in particular. Religion is relegated to ethical values and encouraging legends. It is disappointing to see how he ignores the fact that Christianity, and Protestant Christianity in particular, spurred the modern scientific method. Manchester admits that he depends almost exclusively on secondary sources. This is a major weakness of the book. While writing in my own field (Reformed theology) Manchester betrays an abysmal ignorance of Calvin's ideas and positions and history, accepting the most common stereotypes. He gives a very unbalanced picture of Calvin, and I think of Luther as well. I would rate this book as two stars, except that his excellent discussion of Magellan's life, adventures, and significance raises it up in my opinion to three stars. This book is written for a popular audience, and one can see while reading it that he is used to college students. He writes in a quick, racy style that is easy to read and often entertaining. He often writes about sexual topics, more often it seems than called for and giving more detailed information than necessary; but then maybe this was necessary in his lectures to keep his college students listening.