A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance - Portrait of an Age

by William Manchester

Overview

A "lively and engaging" history of the Middle Ages (Dallas Morning News) from the acclaimed historian William Manchester, author of The Last Lion. 

From tales of chivalrous knights to the barbarity of trial by ordeal, no era has been a greater source of awe, horror, and wonder than the Middle Ages. In handsomely crafted prose, and with the grace and authority of his extraordinary gift for narrative history, William Manchester leads us from a civilization tottering on the brink of collapse to the grandeur of its rebirth: the dense explosion of energy that spawned some of history's greatest poets, philosophers, painters, adventurers, and reformers, as well as some of its most spectacular villains.

"Manchester provides easy access to a fascinating age when our modern mentality was just being born." —Chicago Tribune

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316545310
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	04/30/1992
Edition description:	1st ed
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	452,583
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

William Manchester was a hugely successful popular historian and biographer whose books include The Last Lion, Volumes 1 and 2, Goodbye Darkness, A World Lit Only by Fire, The Glory and the Dream, The Arms of Krupp, American Caesar, The Death of the President, and assorted works of journalism.

Editorial Reviews

Manchester has succeeded in bringing a lively, thoughtful order to a time when humankind was emerging from a prolonged and profound period of intellectual lethargy. If textbooks were written like this, we would all know more about the past.”—David Holahan, San Francisco Chronicle

“Lively and engaging, full of exquisite details and anecdotes that transform this period — usually murky — into a comprehensive tableau.”—Dallas Morning News

"A captivating, marvelously vivid popular history that humanizes the tumultuous span from the Dark Ages to the dawn of the Renaissance."—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher