A World Lit Only by Fire : The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance - Portrait of an Age

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Summary: Year's favorite of my book club
Review: I was responsible for leading a discussion of "...Lit byFire" for my book club, a well educated, widely read andintelligent group of middleaged women. It generated the best discussion we have had in a long time, especially regarding parallels with deep world changes taking place today. Everyone of the 12 present, except one, loved the book. We were all well aware of the accusations of sensationalization but still felt it was an extremely thought provoking contribution to our understanding of people, times and places. I have an advanced degree in Renaissance Art History and had little to criticize re: the Renaissance except I have never read anywhere that Leonardo Da Vinci was in any danger from the Inquisitors of church. But this is a small criticism of a really magnificent book. The portion re; Magellan was a fast paced adventure. It appears, because of intellectually snobbish putdowns by a few reviewers early on, the book was not widely reviewed in magazines and newspapers so I read my club the erudite comments other readers submitted to Amazon.Com!!

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Summary: An author with an axe to grind
Review: Mr Manchester has made up his mind and is not to be swayed: Everything bad that happened during the Medieval & Renaissance periods happend because of the Church, and everything good that happened was in spite of the Church. When an author's predjudice is this flagrent, and his research is less than thorough (e.g. he claims that the Medieval Church taught that procreation was evil) it makes it very hard to believe a word he writes.

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Summary: The worst "history" of medieval Europe now available
Review: Known among medievalists merely as "that book," Manchester's "World Lit Only by Fire" vividly tells a compelling story; the only problem is that the story he tells bears little to no resemblance to the realities of medieval Europe. Manchester gets facts wrong (for instance, being a century off in dating Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales"), commits logical fallacies (for instance, comparing the quality of life of medieval peasants to that of Renaissance lords, and concluding that society as a whole became richer), and seems more interested in writing polemic than history. The reason seems obvious. Manchester, in lionizing Magellan, wishes to make his readers feel good about colonialism, materialism, and European expansionism; in doing so, he must try at all costs to discredit any other form of Western civilization, particularly the insular, spiritually-based outlook of medieval Europe. Manchester's book is not medieval history but colonialist propaganda. If historians were subject to malpractise law, this book would have lost Manchester his license.

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Summary: The Renaissance life I never guessed
Review: Wow--I had to read this book for my AP European History summer reading, and I was not looking forward to the task. Although it started out very, very slowly, it became increasingly interesting throughout, and it is loaded with an abundance of information from the popes to Copernicus to Machievelli. Very resourceful, and it's one I shall always keep. I had no idea how different life was during that time until I read this book. I'd love to be in Manchester's class.

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Summary: A painstakingly thorough analysis of two fascinating eras.
Review: In this glorious book, William Manchester brings to life the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Europe. He combines a superior breadth of historical research with a lust for storytelling. Well done.

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Summary: Exceptionally readable history
Review: Manchester puts the dawn of the Renaissance into context. He has drawn together various skeins of history and brought out the threads which led to weather changes in European history. Wonderful book!

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Summary: There should be a button for 0 stars!
Review: This has got to be the single worst book written about the middle ages. Manchester, who is a 20th century historian, seems to be trying to revive long dead scholarship. Most of his sources were bettered long ago. His ideas that the Middle Ages were a vast period of darkness, and only with the coming of the Reniassance (actually to him probably the Reformation and Luther) did it brighten, are so wrong that this book has actually been ridiculed by most historians. The Middle Ages were the birthplace of the 'modern' concepts of Law, Medicine, Government, Education, Christianity, and many others. The Renaissance brought a little better art, a little further exploration. The Reformation brought a new way of looking at Christianity. Neither hold a candle to the bonfire of the Middle Ages. If you want a good solid introduction the the Middle Ages try Painter and Tierney or Hollister. A good Intro for the Renaissance is Burkhardt. And a good intro for the Reformation is Donald Wilcox, or DeLamar Jensen.

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Summary: a good read, in two parts
Review: I was so engrossed in reading that I forgot about Magellan altogether, until suddenly, there he was. It felt like a rude jolt. Once I started reading the part about Magellan, it felt even more like a rude jolt. I've read so many dry history books that reading a flowing narrative was a treat. I found it relaxing, eye opening. I saw the players as people, where as before I'd viewed them as popes, kings, peasants and lumped them into some kind of category. I almost wish he'd gone on longer, spent more time developing the narrative, and left Magellan off completely. Put Magellan in another book, the contrast was too rough.

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Summary: A fascinating view of medieval Europe
Review: This is the first of William Manchester's works which I have had the pleasure to read. His style is engaging and entertaining as well as thought-provoking. I began placing bookmarks and margin notes for future additional study, but I soon abandoned the process because each page contained many such notations. It would be easier to simply reread the entire book several times, which I am now in the process of doing. Anyone enjoying this book would also find The First Salute and A Distant Mirror to be very satisfying.

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Summary: Manchester Delivers, As Always.
Review: As with every other book which I have read by Wm Manchester, I became completely engrossed. Manchester's genius is not of high historical scholarship, but rather of rendering a masterful narrative that appeals to the non-fiction reader, but does not become mired by esoteric details. In short, Manchester is able like no other recent author to filter the interesting from the irrelevant. This makes him "popular", and therefore less appealing to the dissertation crowd -- but also makes him the writer that you always read for an extra hour before turning out the light at night. The particular strength of this book is that it does not stray from the author's objective: to present what he believes to be an illustration of the medieval mind. But while it approaches a general study, rather than a specific person or event, it still maintains an interesting narrative pace through its anecdotal structure. Manchester presents the dichotomy between morality and hedonism, not simply for sex-sensational purposes, but to illustrate the guiding forces of the medieval mind which he believes to exist. This is the medieval mind as Manchester sees it: prurient, holy, inquisitive, and very human; he presents the illustrations which fit his argument. If there is a flaw, it is that it is a subjective presentation that is almost cloaked in objectivity. But this is due to Manchester's artistic presentation, in which he advocates his position not through historical argument, but through the "pictures" of his anecdotes and illustrations. Admittedly, it is not of the caliber of "Glory and the Dream," but does not seem to attempt to be such an undertaking. Taken for what it is -- an immensely entertaining, yet intelligent, brief study -- Manchester delivers a quality product, as always. Wm. Manchester is the John Lennon of history, and even if this is his worst book (which it may well be) it is still an excellent, five-star book.