Wickham combines a great deal of learning on a dense patchwork of medieval societies from Iceland down to Moorish Spain and from Russia out to the Irish clans. Wickham offers both a new conception of Europe's medieval period and a provocative revision of exactly how and why the Middle Ages matter.Ī previous review suggested that this might be hard work but I found it to be an engrossing listen. He provides illuminating vignettes that underscore how shifting social, economic, and political circumstances affected individual lives and international events. Tracking the entire sweep of the Middle Ages across Europe, Wickham focuses on important changes century by century, including such pivotal crises and moments as the fall of the western Roman Empire, Charlemagne's reforms, the feudal revolution, the challenge of heresy, the destruction of the Byzantine Empire, the rebuilding of late medieval states, and the appalling devastation of the Black Death.
Yet distinguished historian Chris Wickham has taken up the challenge in this landmark book, and he succeeds in producing the most riveting account of medieval Europe in a generation. The millennium between the breakup of the western Roman Empire and the Reformation was a long and hugely transformative period - one not easily chronicled within a single volume.
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