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ralphz 's review for:
"Mysteries of the Middle Ages: And the Beginning of the Modern World" is the fifth Thomas Cahill book I'm reading this month, and it's as revelatory as his others.
This volume on his series on Western history focuses on the Middle Ages, when the West was fighting back after the fall of Rome and just before the ravages of the Plague.
This one looks almost exclusively at Catholicism and how it kept Western ideas flowing. Along the way, the faith laid the groundwork for the changing role of women, the growth of art, reason and its relationship to faith, higher education, alchemy and the beginning of science.
That's a lot for a time often derided as "the Dark Ages," but Cahill doesn't buy that label. The Middle Ages was also a time for great thinkers and authors and figures, like Aquinas, Francis of Assissi, Augustine and Dante.
Cahill acknowledges that his book can't possibly cover all the important foundational events of this time, but he makes a good case for what he does include.
The drawback for me is the layout of the book itself. It features a large amount of marginalia, illustrations and calligraphy mimicking period documents, I imagine, but I found it distracting.
This volume on his series on Western history focuses on the Middle Ages, when the West was fighting back after the fall of Rome and just before the ravages of the Plague.
This one looks almost exclusively at Catholicism and how it kept Western ideas flowing. Along the way, the faith laid the groundwork for the changing role of women, the growth of art, reason and its relationship to faith, higher education, alchemy and the beginning of science.
That's a lot for a time often derided as "the Dark Ages," but Cahill doesn't buy that label. The Middle Ages was also a time for great thinkers and authors and figures, like Aquinas, Francis of Assissi, Augustine and Dante.
Cahill acknowledges that his book can't possibly cover all the important foundational events of this time, but he makes a good case for what he does include.
The drawback for me is the layout of the book itself. It features a large amount of marginalia, illustrations and calligraphy mimicking period documents, I imagine, but I found it distracting.