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A review by beaconatnight
Medieval Europe by Chris Wickham
3.0
I've been reading quite a few books on medieval history the past couple of weeks. Chris Wickham's Medieval Europe is different, as it's less concerned with the actual events than it is with overall trends and interpretation. It traces political, cultural, and economic transformations from the time when the Roman Empire yielded to other societies til up to 1500,. To illustrate and ground his arguments, the author discusses what was generally going on at the times in question.
For the most part the style worked well. Wickham identifies plausible political units and you often get the overall sense that they were going where they would end up because of what was happening before. With this style of presentation its difficult to avoid the CliffsNotes vibes, but especially in the very early chapters there were somewhat unambiguous take-aways for what defines the early Middle Ages.
Yet, although the chapters are structured as much topically as they are ordered chronologically, there were times when I struggled to discern how sections are about the themes that were promised by the titles and introductions. The chapter on Christianization is a case in point. The author takes a closer look at five countries: Ireland, England, Denmark, Norway, and Poland. However, religion appears only sporadically. The focus is much more on transformations of the political system, occasionally explicitly noting that the influence of religious transition was limited.
Some examples can be puzzling, too. For instance, in the chapter on gender relations Whickham presents a picture in which the influence and freedom of women in the Middle Ages is severely limited. What he then discusses are atypical cases of mysticism of women that are interesting in themselves, but whose relevance for the history of Europe seems neglectable. To my uneducated mind the likes of Joan of Arc or Empress Matilda (who fought King Stephen for her right to rule) would have been more fitting here.
The books tone didn't really resonate with me, either. It's difficult to tell how much of it is by publisher's demand (to serve its advertisement), but some passages feel as if informed by an overblown sense of his own originality or are even somewhat condescending when discussing views of his peers. This is especially striking when you stumble across lazily researched marginalia, as when Whickham tells us that Vikings would mean "pirates" (which even as a simplification feels totally inappropriate).
I learned a lot from Medieval Europe, and I'm sure I'll return to it as soon as I gathered more of the actual facts to be interpreted. But it gave me less joy than many of the other works of medieval history I've read as of late.
Rating: 3/5
For the most part the style worked well. Wickham identifies plausible political units and you often get the overall sense that they were going where they would end up because of what was happening before. With this style of presentation its difficult to avoid the CliffsNotes vibes, but especially in the very early chapters there were somewhat unambiguous take-aways for what defines the early Middle Ages.
Yet, although the chapters are structured as much topically as they are ordered chronologically, there were times when I struggled to discern how sections are about the themes that were promised by the titles and introductions. The chapter on Christianization is a case in point. The author takes a closer look at five countries: Ireland, England, Denmark, Norway, and Poland. However, religion appears only sporadically. The focus is much more on transformations of the political system, occasionally explicitly noting that the influence of religious transition was limited.
Some examples can be puzzling, too. For instance, in the chapter on gender relations Whickham presents a picture in which the influence and freedom of women in the Middle Ages is severely limited. What he then discusses are atypical cases of mysticism of women that are interesting in themselves, but whose relevance for the history of Europe seems neglectable. To my uneducated mind the likes of Joan of Arc or Empress Matilda (who fought King Stephen for her right to rule) would have been more fitting here.
The books tone didn't really resonate with me, either. It's difficult to tell how much of it is by publisher's demand (to serve its advertisement), but some passages feel as if informed by an overblown sense of his own originality or are even somewhat condescending when discussing views of his peers. This is especially striking when you stumble across lazily researched marginalia, as when Whickham tells us that Vikings would mean "pirates" (which even as a simplification feels totally inappropriate).
I learned a lot from Medieval Europe, and I'm sure I'll return to it as soon as I gathered more of the actual facts to be interpreted. But it gave me less joy than many of the other works of medieval history I've read as of late.
Rating: 3/5