The Medieval World View: An Introduction

by Ronald B. Herzman and William R. Cook

Book Overview

The Medieval World View, 2/e, is an engaging introduction to the people, places, and ideas that shaped the intellectual world of the Middle Ages. The book presents the presuppositions of medieval society in a systematic fashion by integrating brief, self-contained selections from primary texts and carefully captioned photographs into a narrative of the medieval world and its foundations.
The text is divided into three parts. Treating both the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195139356
• ISBN13: 9780195139358
• Release Date: July 2003
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 325 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Medieval World View

This recently updated (2003) survey of Medieval history from about 0 AD to 1500 AD is by two long-time professors at the State University of New York, Cook and Herzman, who also tag team in a number of popular video lectures for The Teaching Company, which is where I first learned about them. This is easily one of the best surveys I have read, comparable with Morris Bishop's The Middle Ages, Joseph Strayer's The Middle Ages 395-1500 and Norman Cantor's The Civilization of the Middle Ages. "Medieval World View" is only 278 pages which for medieval surveys is a miracle of economy. It really is pithy, with the most important people, events and places in the big picture. But I think its strongest point is that it explains those elements of Medieval history that beginners have the most trouble understanding. The iconography of the medieval mindset is very foreign for the modern reader and most history books do not explain it very well, probably because its thought too specialized, but its a core foundation to understanding the period, and that is what makes this work most unique. Cook/Herzman use the wonderful method of not only telling us what things mean, but also showing it, either through pictures or extended block quotes - there is barely a page without at least one extended block quote. I don't know why this is not done by other historians more often, Cook/Herzman are able to demonstrate a great thinkers ideas in their own words with historically well known and significant quotes, it is very effective. For example I now have a much more solid understanding of the Scholastic method and how Thomas Aquinas wrote his masterpiece by actually reading an excerpt from Summa Theologica. I suppose a serious student can find source documents and read them in conjunction, but allowing Cook/Herzman to find short approachable excerpts that demonstrate the idea is priceless and probably something I would never do on my own. There is no doubt Cook and Herzman focus on Christian topics, for example in a 10 chapter book covering 1000+ years there is an entire chapter devoted to the Franciscan monastic order. To be fair they are up front about the Christian theme from the start, and Medieval history is in many ways church history. Yet strangely, by avoiding much of the political narrative of a longer survey, it simplifies the perspective, for example the events in Italy between roughly 1000 and 1200 can be seen not as a complex web of invasions and feuds but simply secular and church conflict over who has ultimate power. The bibliography is excellent, it includes not only monographs but web sites, primary sources, and reference works, as well as hints on how to do research. Cook/Herzman even dare to say what other medieval historians should say more often: most monographs are written by specialists for specialists, and most novices (ie. popular reading public) end up laboring to understand without a full grasp of the basics. Titles like "Wanning of the Middl