Customer Reviews

Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The criticisms made by some of the other reviewers on Amazon.com concerning this book's often political undertone are quite valid, however the subject has seen scant analysis. Relevations concerning pollution controls in force six hundred years ago are particularly interesting as being demonstrative of the relative sophistication of medieval Europeans. Gimpel's book is very approachable in its prose and it conveniently covers a number of areas, but it doesn't cover technology transfer (especially from Byzantium or the East) in adequate detail. The copy of this book I have is fairly old (1976) and subsequent research has clarified some of the points made in Gimpel's work. Recent issues of Scientific American and other "popular" sources, for example, contain information on diverse areas such as ship building which would have been beneficial to be included in Gimpel's work. In this respect Gimpel's book can not be considered authoratative. It is pleasant though to read a book on this subject, which for some readers will demonstrate the ingenuity of the medieval engineer.

An excellent work marred by a little too much enthusiasm, this book will convey to the student of history the notion that the middle ages were not the black hole of lack of technology that most historians portray them to be. The author compares the changes in technology, and the scope of their results, to the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century, and he may be pushing the analogy a bit. However, it is certainly true that technology did advance in ways in the Middle Ages. As for biases and tone, the author veers deceptively about, now seeming anti-industrialist, now communist, now capitalist, now labor historian. The book is marred by a final chapter in which the author tries to draw a parallel between the Middle Ages and the modern day that is both not well described and does not seem to be accurate given the circumstances of the world 20 years after the writing. But for the descriptions of technology alone, and of corporate-like structures in the middle ages, this is a good read.

What I liked about the book was how it provided a glimpse into the every day life in the Middle ages by describing technological advances. It just opened up that facet of Medieval History that is hardly ever touched on.

Medieval times are usually protrayed as a step backwards from the classical era in terms of technology and sophitication. This book sort of dispells our generic view of the Middle Ages as an age of Pagentry and fairy tales, and shows us how commerce was run during that era. Maybe I'm just a geek, but I found it very interesting.

I found The Medieval Machine a refreshing examination of the material cicumstances of medieval life, including power sources, agriculture and food, mining, and the environment. I also appreciated Gimpel's fairly 'hard' approach, including many real numbers (e.g. considing the percentage of vegetables consumed and what health problems might arise from that). The sections on general mechanization and science are less good than the others, but not terrible. The book does not try to be sweeping but to focus on a few select topics, and it does this well.

As has been stated, Gimpel did indeed push an anti-industrial, environmentalist agenda with this book. What hasn't been stated is that it is quite easy (or was for me at least) to separate the soapboxing from the scholastic work. There is in my opinion too much to learn from this book to pass on it based on the author's inability to keep it strictly scholarly.

It has also been suggested that this book engages in false advertising: that it doesn't provide any facts about individual machines. I too was hoping to learn more about the workings of machines used at the time. But given that machines of the time weren't mass produced (each was made separately, by hand, and likely with great variation), and given that this book thoroughly smashes public school misconceptions about the Medieval period, and thus also the misconceptions about every period thereafter, I am therefore not as upset about not being rewarded with schematics. There are few workings of the machines. There are many effects of their use.

I found it an easy read, I got much new knowledge out of it, it smashed several preconceptions I had about the period, and it was fairly short. I only wish more history texts did likewise.

The book is divided into 8 chapters, each dealing with a different aspect of medieval industrial development. The first chapter, my favorite, deals with energy sources, mostly windmills and watermills. It is a fascinating essay on the subject.
Another good chapter is on pollution in the Middle Ages. I never considered this a medieval problem but it really was, making this a captivating read.
The reason why I can' give this book 5 stars is that there are way too many in-text quotes that just do fit the passages. Rather than quoting a 13th century German poet who wrote about the plight of the Bavarian forests, Gimpel (the author) should have merely stressed the ecological consequences in his own capable articulation.

Gimpel does a fine job at recreating the technology of the past, yet the book does not read like popular history so it might scare layman away. With regards to scholarship however, I have not found a better single volume that covers the material as well as Gimpel does here. If you are truly interested in this specific subject then read this book, you will not be disappointed.

A poor piece of work. Certainly Gimpel shows he has done the research, but he continually uses it as a prop for blatantly Communist dialectics. His interpretation of history as class warfare, his inability to see religions in other than a completely hostile and superficial light, his essentially antagonistic view of European industrialism-- whether you agree with this overriding belief structure of his, or not-- prejudices each and every issue raised in his work.

In an older release on Penguin (and possibly not in the latest; I haven't examined any later editions), Gimpel concludes his text with a long, whining complaint about the way he was treated in a 70's lecture tour of the USA, averring that only Berkeley/SF students understood his views, and that the rest of America was deaf to the failure and imminent wholesale destruction of its industrial system and mass culture. Gimpel was certain at the time that it was heading into an immediate downhill spiral which mirrored the last days of the European Middle Ages.

In fact, the Middle Ages did quite well, and so has the United States, despite Gimpel's prognostications. This book has some interesting facts, but they are so interwoven with ill-supported opinions based on unsubstantiated theorizing as to make the result both unintentionally hilarious and virtually useless.

As a non-historian I only thought of the Midieval times as the Dark Ages (whatever that means... people crawling around dying of the Black Plague? ... illiterate, uncultured, dirty, stupid, lazy, blah blah blah). Well, this book dispells the popular misconception. I loved it.

The first thing you need to know about this book is that it is not really entitled The Medieval Machine. That is the American title given to this French book which was originally published as The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages. If you are interested in learnin about medieval machinery and mechanical inventions this, despite the title, is not the book for you.

The second thing that you need to know about this book is that, well, it is not a coherent "book." It is, basically, a collection of loosely related essays about industrial life in the high and late (mostly late) middle ages.

The third thing you need to know about this book is that these essays are not very good. Simply, they are a good representation of typical Romance-language scholarship: a series of non-sequitors riddled with quotations from source material which are not properly cited.

The only reason to buy this book is the essay on pollution and the environment. This book is the only published work (in book form) in English to deal with this important aspect of medieval life. Again, and unfortunately, while the essay is unique, it remains poor. I strongly suggest that you not purchase this book.