Medieval Horizons
- Author Ian Mortimer
- Narrator Ian Mortimer
- Publisher Random House
- Run Time 10 hours and 24 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre European history: medieval period, middle ages, Historiography, History, Social and cultural history.
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What to expect
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We tend to think about the Middle Ages as a dark and backward time, characterised by violence, ignorance and superstition. We believe that life was unchanging over the period, so if a peasant fell asleep in in the year 1000 and woke up six hundred years later, he would return to a world that was instantly recognisable. We hold that change is facilitated by science and technological innovation, and that it was the inventions of recent centuries, from the steam engine to the Internet, that created the modern world.
We couldn't be more wrong. As Ian Mortimer shows in this fascinating introduction to the Middle Ages, people's horizons - their knowledge, experience and understanding of the world -- expanded dramatically. All aspects of life - politics and economics, religion and the arts - were utterly transformed between 1000 and 1600, in the process laying the foundations on which our modern lives rest.
If Ian Mortimer's bestselling Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England revealed what it was like to live in the fourteenth century, Medieval Horizons provides the perfect primer to the period as a whole. It looks at the Middle Ages through the prism of a small range of topics - ranging from warfare to religion, travel to architecture, inequality to a new sense of self - thereby correcting misconceptions and presenting the period as one of the most important eras in our past, about which any reader with an interest in history should care.
© Ian Mortimer 2023 (P) Penguin Audio 2023
Critics Review
A sparkling re-evalutation of the Middle Ages … An eye-opening book that challenges our preconceptions and prejudices about the past
Ian Mortimer is a wonderfully readable writer
Medieval Horizons doesn’t set out to be a comprehensive survey of medieval England, but rather challenges us to rethink the Middle Ages and its social, cultural and intellectual innovations. Mortimer is a compelling advocate for our medieval inheritance. He is right that we should be proud of it
In this razor-sharp book, Mortimer argues the case for the wonder of the Middle Ages with rigour, verve and, above all, evidence
[A] spirited defence of the era … Compelling stuff from one of the leading experts on the subjects
The word ‘medieval’ has become synonymous with ‘backwards, ignorant, violent and superstitious.’ But here Mortimer reminds us that our modern world is not the result of the technological developments of the past few centuries. Instead, our cultural, personal, social and environmental identities were forged in the medieval period. By shedding light on the important developments made from the first millennium to 1600, Mortimer asks us to redraw our understanding of the past
Provocative and refreshing. Medieval Horizons overturns many myths about the Middle Ages, showing that far from an era of stagnation, it was a period of profound change which has shaped today’s world
Superb … Mortimer allows us to make wonderfully compelling connections with our forebears
His aim, triumphantly achieved, is to engage our sympathies with people whose similarities to us are as fascinating as their differences
Perhaps the most enjoyable history book I’ve read all year
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