About the Author

William Manchester was a hugely successful popular historian and biographer whose books include The Last Lion, Volumes 1 and 2, Goodbye Darkness, A World Lit Only by Fire, The Glory and the Dream, The Arms of Krupp, American Caesar, The Death of the President, and assorted works of journalism.

Reviews

"A captivating, marvelously vivid popular history that humanizes the tumultuous span from the Dark Ages to the dawn of the Renaissance."--Publishers Weekly

"Lively and engaging, full of exquisite details and anecdotes that transform this period -- usually murky -- into a comprehensive tableau."--Dallas Morning News

"Manchester has succeeded in bringing a lively, thoughtful order to a time when humankind was emerging from a prolonged and profound period of intellectual lethargy. If textbooks were written like this, we would all know more about the past."--David Holahan, San Francisco Chronicle

YA-- An absorbing and readable history, beginning with the collapse of Rome and ending with the redawning of intellectual pursuits in the Renaissance. Manchester's vivid descriptions of the misery and ignorance of the Middle Ages are the background for the second and main section of his book, which he calls the ``shattering,''--the collapse of essentially unified thought and the rebirth of the pursuit of knowledge. His last section focuses on Magellan and his historic voyage, described as a primary event in contributing to Western man's changing view of the world. The story of his efforts to obtain backing for his venture is engrossing; the difficulties of the voyage are made real enough to feel.-- Philip D. Winters, Thomas Jefferson Sci-Tech, Fairfax County, VA

Using only secondary sources, Manchester plunges readers into the medieval mind-set in a captivating, marvelously vivid popular history that humanizes the tumultuous span from the Dark Ages to the dawn of the Renaissance. He delineates an age when invisible spirits infested the air, when tolerance was seen as treachery and ``a mafia of profane popes desecrated Christianity.'' Besides re-creating the arduous lives of ordinary people, the Wesleyan professor of history peoples his tapestry with such figures as Leonardo, Machiavelli, Lucrezia Borgia, Erasmus, Luther, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Manchester ( The Arms of Krupp ) devotes much attention to Magellan, whose globe-straddling voyage shattered Christendom's implicit belief in Europe as the center of the universe. His portrayal of the Middle Ages as a time when the strong and the shrewd flourished, while the imaginative, the cerebral and the unfortunate suffered, rings true. Illustrations. (June)

"A captivating, marvelously vivid popular history that humanizes the tumultuous span from the Dark Ages to the dawn of the Renaissance."--Publishers Weekly
"Lively and engaging, full of exquisite details and anecdotes that transform this period -- usually murky -- into a comprehensive tableau."--Dallas Morning News
"Manchester has succeeded in bringing a lively, thoughtful order to a time when humankind was emerging from a prolonged and profound period of intellectual lethargy. If textbooks were written like this, we would all know more about the past."--David Holahan, San Francisco Chronicle