Where It's a Big Damn Topic Alright

The Civilization of the Middle Ages by Norman F. Cantor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is both a comprehensive, logically presented, useful overview of the civilization of the Middle Ages--and a bit of a slog to read.

Some of it is pretty compelling and memorable, but large swaths are real work to plow through. Probably my fault. TBH, the book is a fifty-gallon tank of detailed information and my brain's a five-gallon bucket...

The good news is I've maybe got room for a bit more now.

As with so many books of the type, I feel like, having read it, I'm now prepared to read something similar and understand a lot more on the topic, ready to read the next book. The book helped me build schema, as we used to say in education, making hooks in the mind to hang the next bit of knowledge on. To give the book it's props, I can say that I perceive the general outlines of the history of the papacy now, and I sorta get the contours of the Holy Roman Empire's history, and I begin to understand how the power dynamics of the monarchies vs. nobility vs. church in France and England had different histories, different seesaws of power, different routes through the past toward a pretty similar present. It makes a lot more sense to me now. Tons of it got past me, but it's all there in the book if I wanted to go back.

To sum up, I'd say that I understand the topic enough to prepare my mind for more, but nowhere near enough to explain the Middle Ages to anyone else.

Anyway, this book offers good to excellent information and fair to middling entertainment, so how you ultimately respond to it will depend on your purpose in reading. IMO.

Recommended especially for those who bring a little knowledge with them.

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