Matthew Gabriele, David M. Perry: Bright Ages (2021, HarperCollins Publishers)
English language
Published March 13, 2021 by HarperCollins Publishers.
Genuinely fascinating. It took me a while to read this, but it was worth it. One of the best books I read this year, and it completely changed my perspective on the Middle Ages.
This book is a revisiting of Medieval Europe that calls into question many myths and misconceptions of the time. It's certainly interesting, and was an easy enough read, but it's only 300 pages long and covers about 1000 years of history, so it doesn't get very deep into many subjects. I think in part because of the brevity, the book will often quickly mention some collection of people other than western european christians, only to veer back into largely describing this period of history in terms of christians and western europeans. The book claims to be explicitly anti-white supremacist, and while I don't doubt the intention is there, I think the book doesn't succeed as well as I would have liked. I'm glad I read it but mostly because I'll probably try and find other more detailed books about the period.
If you go by the pithy summary you may assume this is going to be a tale of how wonderful and perfect the Middle Ages were unlike the pejorative "Dark Ages" term we have long applied. You'd be wrong. This is not a book trying to conjure up some overly simplistic counter-narrative to the overly simplistic "Dark Ages" narrative. It instead tries to weave a detailed view of how things were throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia. They do not try to imply it was all lollipops and gumdrops. Then again, neither was any other period of human history. Humans and our relationships are messy therefore our histories are messy. This captures that aspect while still rescuing ourselves from the CW we were taught of, "Rome was amazing but fell, then Europe went into a horrible dark period where no one remembered anything and scraped by in unimaginably poor conditions until …
If you go by the pithy summary you may assume this is going to be a tale of how wonderful and perfect the Middle Ages were unlike the pejorative "Dark Ages" term we have long applied. You'd be wrong. This is not a book trying to conjure up some overly simplistic counter-narrative to the overly simplistic "Dark Ages" narrative. It instead tries to weave a detailed view of how things were throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia. They do not try to imply it was all lollipops and gumdrops. Then again, neither was any other period of human history. Humans and our relationships are messy therefore our histories are messy. This captures that aspect while still rescuing ourselves from the CW we were taught of, "Rome was amazing but fell, then Europe went into a horrible dark period where no one remembered anything and scraped by in unimaginably poor conditions until magically in the 15th century there was light and the peasants rejoiced and could smile again."
The biggest thing I was looking for which I didn't get was a bit more of day in the life views of ordinary people. The book does a great job of tying together power dynamics between families, churches and regions, works of artists, and many other important details. I would love to know more about what Joe Peasant's life was like. The problem is no one cared about those things so no one recorded it and preserved it anywhere near as much as the for those in the halls of power of monasteries, castles, etc. There is certainly as much as they could probably wring out of what is available, maybe a bit less to ensure better flow, but not as much as I'd like.
