A review by ktymick
Medieval Bodies: Life and Death in the Middle Ages by Jack Hartnell

2.0

This history is structured into chapters relating to different body parts, ie., the head, the heart, the feet, and Hartnell seeks to elucidate his audience on how humanity viewed our corporeal forms biologically, scientifically, and culturally. Hartnell attempts to draw evidence from not only Western sources but from the Middle East and Asia as well, but by the end heavily leans on European accounts to assert his suppositions. There are pockets of interesting asides, but his research is paltry and cherry-picked, and the conclusions that are subsequently drawn are weak and point toward what often felt like the author's own professed uncertainty about the subject. I questioned what I was supposed to have learned at the end of each chapter.