Customer Reviews

The Decline and Fall of Medieval Sicily: Politics, Religion, and Economy in the Reign of Frederick III, 1296-1337

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About a year ago, and by a string of coincedence, I spent a month travelling around Sicily. To keep this short and get to the point, I'll just say that finding myself travelling in a strange country is not an extraordinary occurance for me. What did strike me as odd was how little I knew about the history of this island. So when I got home I grabbed the first book I could find about Sicily. I'm glad it was this one.

Mr. Backman's book is obviously a scholarly text written more for other historians than for a civilian like myself. The writer didn't feel the need to fill me in on the history immediately preceding the half century that he covers in his book. He assumed that his reader knew about the earlier Norman conquest, and the Vespers war and Angevin antagonism to Catalan rule. I did not. But because of Mr. Backman's skill, this did not matter. Knowing his subject so well, he effortlessly glides from the broadest geopolitical concepts to the timeless drama of a personal feud between two rivals.

Not unlike tuning in to the middle of a daytime soap opera, you are drawn in. And I thank him for inspiring me to fill in the gaps in my knowlege by further reading.