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Title: In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made by Norman Cantor ISBN: 0-06-001434-2 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 16 April, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.22 (114 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Poor History
Comment: I picked up this book thinking it might be along the lines of "Yellow Fever, Black Goddess", but more specifically dealing with the plague and its effects in one country. Well, it does deal with one country, England, and there are moments of intellectual clarity, but overall it is extremely poor scholarship. I have been appalled at complete errors and extremely presumptuous opinions that the author has expressed. For one, that King John was a manic-depressive. I have family members with this condition, but nothing I have read about John would indicate that, and I've read alot. He was brutal and capricious, but so was just about every other European monarch of that time. He said that John of Gaunt's mistress was Geoffrey Chaucer's wife, when in fact, John of Gaunt's mistress (whom he eventually married late in life) was Geoffrey' Chaucer's sister-in-law. These are just a couple of the outright historical errors. I could go on. But then there is the issue of his deconstruction of 13th and 14th century life into 20th century politics. And I do mean 20th rather than 21st, because he almost sounds like an outright communist. I mean, does anyone else think of or describe medievel peasants as "the proletariet"? How anyone who has apparently written so many books on the middle ages could make so many mistakes and judge their society from such a 20th century viewpoint is beyond me. If you are looking for a good book on diseases and their effects on history, Yellow Fever, Black Goddess, was much better, although not just about the plague.
Rating: 1
Summary: A Plague on This Tendentious and Sloppy Book
Comment: Characterized by poor grammar, excessive repetition, tendentious swipes at modern politicians he dislikes, conflicting equivalences of modern and mediaeval currency, and chaotic organization, Cantor's book appears to be a slap-dash compilation of lecture notes.
Rating: 3
Summary: Easy read, if somewhat jumbled
Comment: I bought this book at the airport in Boston and found it appropriate as an "airport book." On a late night flight, it was entertaining but not intense. Nor was it well organized. The end of the book abruptly stops with comments about Chaucer rather than a summing up of the main thesis. One gets the impression of an erudite academician, late in life, with lots to say but very little energy to say it in an organized way. Some of the errors are obvious, even to someone with only surface knowledge of the period. For example, he states somewhere in the book that Constantinople fell in the 14th century rather than in 1453. But for all that .. it is a quick read and can be considered as something like a "bathroom reader" -- full of interesting tid bits but without much of a unifying thread. His earlier books were much better organized. Maybe he just needs to take a vacation. I'd recommend it as a airplane or beach book (aka "history lite").
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Title: The Civilization of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History by Norman F. Cantor ISBN: 0060925531 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 03 August, 1994 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: The Black Death and the Transformation of the West by David Herlihy, Samuel Kline Cohn ISBN: 0674076133 Publisher: Harvard University Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300-1850 by Brian M. Fagan ISBN: 0465022723 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 24 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Black Death by Philip Ziegler ISBN: 0061315508 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 28 May, 1971 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Black Death Transformed: Disease and Culture in Early Renaissance Europe (Arnold Publication) by Sam K. Cohn ISBN: 0340706473 Publisher: Arnold Publishers Pub. Date: 01 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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