Customer Reviews

Medieval Life (Eyewitness Books)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

DK eyewitness books are some of the greatest non-fiction books around. The distinctive white background and high-quality photography gives this book an edge over any other nonfiction picture book. And -- these pictures are real! They're beautiful museum-quality photos of all things related to medival times, accompanied by informative captions and text.

Learn about medieval life, from peasants to rich folks, their clothes, food, music, etc. The strength in this book lies in the photos, however, and this book isn't an exhaustive history of medieval times. Rather, it serves as a hook to interest people, and induce them to dig further, while giving them a bit more knowledge.

If you know someone (young or old) who is fascinated by medieval times, then you must introduce them to this book!

I AM IN GRADE 4 AND I LEARNED ABOUT THE MIDDLE AGES
IT WAS A GREAT GREAT UNIT BETTER THAN MATH AND ENGLISH
I GOT AN A PLUS ON MY TEST I JUST LOVE HISTORY.I DK BOOKS

Knights, castles and medieval ways are vividly brought to life in this excellent book. Eyewitness books give you all the information you need in short text and captioned pictures...and they keep children's attention!

In the Dorling Kindersley style, wonderful photographs of clothing, tools, furniture, weapons, musical instruments and more. I especially liked the page describing the process of illuminating and gilding a manuscript. Grades 6-12

I bought this for my 12-year old granddaughter as part of an effort to build a classics library for her (since the schools no long seem to stress the classics); she read it through, so the effort was worthwhile.

I have such high expectations for DK Eyewitness books. As a rule, the photography and visuals are engaging and instructive, the captions are excellent for gleaning additional details, and the text is comprehensive and clear.

This book has the visuals and the captions. But... and this is probably due to space constraints... the book focused on medieval life in England and France, to the near-exclusion of any information about the rest of Europe. Taking 1,000 years of history across a continent and crimping it to discuss only a small geographic area was unsatisfying.

Also, feudalism, customs, habits, and technology *did* change across ten centuries, but this book present the Middle Ages as static and monolithic. What was true at a feast in England in 1275 was probably not true of a feast in Spain in 780 or in Germany in 1066. Things change and fashions change, albeit slowly in this time period.

The book did not do a good job capturing how insular people were in the Middle Ages.

Still the visuals are excellent. Round this out with "A Medieval Castle (Inside Story)" by Fiona MacDonald or "Castle" by David Macaulay.

The word mediaval means the middle ages. The period from 500 to the end of the 1500s. The Crusades began in 1095 to drive out Muslims. The king gave land to barons who supplied soldiers. At the bottom were peasants. Most women had to work. Vlad Tepes was the most infamous baron. The Crusades lasted 3 centuries. The church was the center of the mediaval world. The average life expectancy wss 30 years. The Black Death saw 1/3 of Europe's population dead by 1348.

Knights, Castles, Medieval Life: Boring. I love Eyewitness books and I like a lot of the Water Eyewitness books, but Eyewitness books like Knights, Castles and Medieval Life just don't appeal to me. Eyewitness Medieval Life gets 1 star because in about 1 or 2 places in the book it is kind of intresting but other then that this book is very plain and boring.