A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance -- Portrait of an Age by Manchester, William - 1992

Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1992. Book Club (BCE/BOMC). Hard Cover. Very Good/Near Fine. Book club edition. Top edge faintly foxed. 1992 Hard Cover. xvii, 318. "It speaks to the failure of medieval Europe, writes popular historian William Manchester, that 'in the year 1500, after a thousand years of neglect, the roads built by the Romans were still the best on the continent.' European powers were so absorbed in destroying each other and in suppressing peasant revolts and religious reform that they never quite got around to realizing the possibilities of contemporary innovations in public health, civil engineering, and other peaceful pursuits. Instead, they waged war in faraway lands, created and lost fortunes, and squandered millions of lives. For all the wastefulness of medieval societies, however, Manchester notes, the era created the foundation for the extraordinary creative explosion of the Renaissance. Drawing on a cast of characters numbering in the hundreds, Manchester does a solid job of reconstructing the medieval world, although some scholars may disagree with his interpretations.