Andrea W. reviewed on 7/12/2008

Helpful Score: 1

This was arguably one of the worst books on late medieval Europe that I have seen. It made uncritical use of the hoary comparisons between medieval and modern thought. I used the book's introduction in a couple of introductory courses. Students read Manchester's introduction in the first week of the course, and almost all agreed with him. At the end of the course I trotted out the same reading, and asked students to review it. How did they feel about Manchester's introduction after a full semester -- different (how and why)? The same (why)? Ambivalent? I would say 90% of the students in every class were disenchanted with Manchester's approach. They pointed out places where he plays fast and loose with chronology in order to make his point, places where he relies on a single contrary source to the exclusion of a wealth of evidence pointing toward a different conclusion, bias in his choices of adjectives and juxtaposition of evidence, and the like. I finally put my copy (along with the DaVinci Code) into the recycle bin rather than perpetuate such a take on the Middle Ages.

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