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aliceboule's review against another edition
4.0
Very useful and an insightful work on medieval literacy in England (using a huge amount of sources that are both famous and unknown). Reads almost like a manual. My only criticism: Clanchy doesn't address (sufficiently) the role of women in the development of literacy, and goes so far as to discredit studies on monastic female literacy.
badfalcon's review
challenging
informative
slow-paced
2.0
This was a slog to read, and I nearly gave up many times - it was only how utterly fascinating it was. But oh this was not a book that was written to be read!
nairam1173's review
4.0
I did it! The February-August length of time is mostly due to a lot of procrastinating where I let it sit in my "currently reading" making me feel guilty until I picked it up and actually started over in late July.
A fascinating book, if sometimes a bit dense and other times repetitive (not within a chapter, but one chapter may repeat the same ideas as another). I especially like the way it challenges the preconceptions of a society (ours) that thinks literacy is required for civilization.
There's too much to really sum up, but this book is rich and multifaceted and I'm glad that I finally sat myself down to read it all.
A fascinating book, if sometimes a bit dense and other times repetitive (not within a chapter, but one chapter may repeat the same ideas as another). I especially like the way it challenges the preconceptions of a society (ours) that thinks literacy is required for civilization.
There's too much to really sum up, but this book is rich and multifaceted and I'm glad that I finally sat myself down to read it all.
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