The History of the Medieval World

From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade

De: Susan Wise Bauer

Narrado por: John Lee

From the schism between Rome and Constantinople to the rise of the T'ang Dynasty, from the birth of Muhammad to the crowning of Charlemagne, this erudite book tells the fascinating, often violent story of kings, generals, and the peoples they ruled. In her earlier work, The History of the Ancient World, Susan Wise Bauer wrote of the rise of kingship based on might. But in the years between the fourth and the 12th centuries, rulers had to find new justification for their power, and they turned to divine truth or grace to justify political and military action. Right thus replaces might as the engine of empire. Not just Christianity and Islam but the religions of the Persians and the Germans, and even Buddhism, are pressed into the service of the state. This phenomenon---stretching from the Americas all the way to Japan---changes religion, but it also changes the state.

©2010 Susan Wise Bauer (P)2010 Tantor

Reseñas de la Crítica

“[A] witty and well-written examination of world history...that is rich in detail and intriguing in anecdotal information.” ( Publishers Weekly)

Lacking Visuals

By definition an audiobook has no visual accompaniment, but this particular history had me jumping back and forth between portions of this book and Wikipedia to look up maps and biographic details that probably were part of the print media.
The parts detailing Chinese and Indian potions probably would benefit from print media as well. The names of actors and geography would also be easier to follow with a hard copy to page back in to clarify a lineage, for instance or route of traders and armies and changing of hands of geographical spots over time. I'll
Probably get a relevant library book with maps and thumbnail historical timelines.

Good Overview

First off this book is rather dry, but for a history nerd it's great. It's a pretty good overview of world history from the conversion of Constantine to the year of 1100 c.e. I wish that it did go more in depth into some areas, but that's not what an overview is, I suppose. Overall pretty good performance, I'm a fan of John Lee due to this series, and he's perfect for the subject-material.

Lots of Wars as Empires Rise and Fall

This is great survey of world empire creation and destruction and helps one understand why these ancient events set up the wars and conflicts we have today. It was gut wrenching to learnabout all the evil done by kings and the elites in their quests to be in charge.

too much information

I struggled to get through this book although I learned a great deal it was so disorganized it took me time to figure out where the narrator was going with the information. there were too many distractions and directions. however I did enjoy all of the information that I did gleam from the information. it was an addictive read.

Good overview of the Medieval World

This book does a good job of walking the reader/listener through timelines, peoples and events across medieval world. I enjoyed it and will probably purchase the book to have on hand as a reference.

Clear and authoritative

Pronunciation of Chinese names and places way off the mark. Other than that a good way to get an outline of the medieval world.

Excellent reading

The narrator is spectacularly fluent with many different languages. Tons of new history and ideas.

Short stops, quick detours, panoramic views,

and some laughable situations on this fast, yet expansive train-ride-thru ~1000 years of recent history.

A lot of facts, a lot of names, places dates

There is a whole lot of 'one darn thing after another' in the telling of this story. Even the author herself would probably not be able to answer all the questions from a multiple choice test based on this book. At times, it did get overwhelming with all the names and places and dates which are presented in this story.

The narrative for weaving the story together coherently at times seemed to be missing. The particular sometimes needs a glue in order for the bigger, universal story to be understood. It's possible to look at and study every turtle in the known universe, but still not understand what turtle being really means.

I felt the book excelled at early Christian church history and what the nature of the trinity meant, the different ways of understanding the divinity of Christ, and the development of the orthodox Western Church and the Eastern Church. All early Christian 'isms' such as Nestorianism, Manicheism, Arianism, and so on usually confuse me, but she would repeat the definition as they came up in the story telling thus allowing me to follow the esoteric fine points. The author also would emphasis the importance of identity in order for a group of people to become greater than the sum of its parts thus allowing for a cohesive system of some kind transcending what was previously there beforehand.

I thought a slightly better book on this topic was Will Durant's Volume IV of "The Story of Civilization: The Age of Faith". He has a narrative that tied the story together, and he also looked at the development of thought in addition to the political events that were covered in this book, and he presented most of the same facts (at least in Europe), but I never felt overwhelmed by his story telling as I sometimes would with this book because he knows that history needs a narrative in order to be understood.

Wars & Kings

Would you try another book from Susan Wise Bauer and/or John Lee?

No

What was most disappointing about Susan Wise Bauer’s story?

Too much emphasis on wars and kings and not enough emphasis on culture, religion, values, etc. Also, far too much emphasis on non-European countries such as China, India and Persia. The book should advertise this because when a Westerner reads a book on medieval history he expects European history.

What does John Lee bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Nice voice.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No.