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

~ (Author) "THE DENSEST of the medieval centuries-the six hundred years between, roughly, A.D. 400 and A.D. 1000-are still widely known as the Dark Ages..." (more)
Key Phrases: sacred college, sailing westward, medieval men, Holy Roman, Martin Luther, Pope Leo (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It speaks to the failure of medieval Europe, writes popular historian William Manchester, that "in the year 1500, after a thousand years of neglect, the roads built by the Romans were still the best on the continent." European powers were so absorbed in destroying each other and in suppressing peasant revolts and religious reform that they never quite got around to realizing the possibilities of contemporary innovations 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 with his interpretations.

From Publishers Weekly

Manchester's marvelously vivid popular history humanizes the tumultuous span from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance. A one-week PW bestseller in cloth. Illustrations.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 322 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (June 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316545562
• ISBN-13: 978-0316545563
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (218 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #43,750 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Manchester's Reign of Error, October 19, 1999

By A Customer

Any work of history is bound to have a few errors of fact or interpretation, but "A World Lit Only By Fire" is riddled with astonishing inaccuracies. At one point, Manchester claims that Copernicus was burned at the stake by the Inquisition. In fact, Copernicus died of natural causes (cerebral haemorrhage) in 1543! Publication of his "Book of Revolutions" was actually encouraged by certain Church officials during his lifetime, and the book was not proscribed by the Church until 73 years after it was published. Perhaps Manchester was thinking of Giordano Bruno, or perhaps he was not thinking at all. Another example: His description of John Calvin's bloodthirsty doings relies on heavily biased secondary sources, many of which have been discredited by serious historians. There's no need to bring up further examples, since Manchester himself claims in his introduction that a historian who read the manuscript disagreed with statements on almost every page of this book. It seems safe to assume that Manchester's unwillingness to correct or qualify these statements was the result of his having an axe to grind. If you have even a glancing acquaintance with medieval history, you'll be shocked by Manchester's willful disregard for basic facts. If you're new to the subject and want a good introduction, try Barbara Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror" or Norman Cohn's "Pursuit of the Millennium."

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars There should be a button for 0 stars!, February 27, 1999

By A Customer

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.

50 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars "In the Medieval mind, there was also no awareness of time." , July 10, 2006

By	M. Combs "medievalist" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance Portrait of an Age (Paperback)

"In the Medieval mind, there was also no awareness of time." This breathtakingly ludicrous statement appears on page 22, and it represents everything that is horrifying about this book. (Just for starters, try telling any farmer of any era that he has "no awareness of time" and you'll end up in the manure pile, literally or figuratively.)
Read Regine Pernoud's "Those Terrible Middle Ages: Debunking the Myths" (published in May 2000) or go to the library and pull out the 38-year-old "Horizon book of the Middle Ages" instead. Manchester's vituperation of the era borders on hysteria.