I appreciate that this book explicitly calls out bigots and fascists who like to hold up medieval Europe as some white supremacist ideal. Overall an engaging and interesting history. ( )

Lots of things happened in the thousand years after the Roman empire fell. Unfortunately, for the lay reader, many of those events remain confusing. In The Bright Ages, Matthew Gabriele and David Perry provide a new general history of this period in European history. There book does not attempt to provide an exhaustive history of the period. Instead, they choose a few key events and provide a good, readable description of those events. Doing so, their book is essentially a collection of selected highlights of Medieval European history.

Their approach is valuable since it allows readers to maintain a view of the entire period without losing themselves in tedious details of each period. The highlights they chose are very interesting and they placed an emphasis on the role of women during this period. Even better, they talk a lot about the influence of Islam and Arab scholars as well as the Jewish community of the time. They also provide numerous examples of areas where tolerance was shown for people of other faiths and other races. Particularly good, is their discussion of the role of travel and trade during this period which helped spread ideas. Finally, in their conclusion they discuss how Medieval history is currently being misinterpreted by right-wingers.

Their attempt to rebrand the Dark Ages as the Bright Ages was unconvincing. In particular, as they were describing the massacre of the people of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, I found the references to the Bright Ages to be plain annoying.

The weakness in their highlight approach is that the events are covered in such a way that the reader is left with the impression that a lot has been left out. This is sort of the way someone still feels empty after eating a McDonalds hamburger. The authors made a good trade-off between readability and providing more details. The book is well worth reading. ( )

Did not finish. I'm just not interested in an argument about whether a time period was good or bad for its humans that doesn't talk about how the common people actually lived.

This book is frustrating on a number of counts.

Some of that is structural. The book begins by making the claim that the Roman empire never really fell, and then proceeds to argue this, somewhat convincingly, for several chapters. And then… it just changes topics
The book wants to center women and non-white people, but seems to largely discuss things at a very high level not concerning people at all… or discusses white men (sometimes, lamenting this inline.) This, I suspect, is because the authors set a too-high bar: because most societies have been patriarchal and most of Europe, despite traders, migrants, invaders, etc. was, in fact, full of what would come to be called white people.
The authors want to show that the Dark Ages were actually the Bright Ages… but then proceed to discuss the slow fragmentation of what was the Roman Empire (even broadly construed) and how even the people alive at the various times were aware that has lost so much (and long after they had stopped thinking of themselves as Roman.)
And then we dash across the Middle East, Central Asia, touch on China…

Some of my frustration comes from the premise, the conceit even, of the book: here is a new vision, a bold retelling… Yeah, brah, bold revisionism is a whole damn genre at this point. Trade and migration tied the world together from ancient times until now; women played often ignored roles but were nonetheless integral; brown- and black-skinned peoples moved into and out of Europe, in varying degrees, for varying lengths of time, with numerous impacts… forever. The Black Death banged around for a while, it wasn’t a couple of years or even a decade, and it traversed Eurasia from east to west, sparing no one. Greek classics re-entered Europe through Arabic translations.
Cities existed during the Dark Ages (and some even grew.)
I mean… yeah, dude. No sh@t. Maybe that means I’m educated, or maybe it means some other people are just massively uneducated, but none of this is new. I’d argue that this is all… very… mainstream.

And, yes, it all bears repeating, because “Europe in the Dark Ages” = “Pallid Wasteland” casts a long shadow. As do assumptions that up until circa 1500 everyone (i.e. all races) were in their own hermetically sealed regions.
But this ain’t new.

And I also suspect that marchers protesting The Great Replacement in Virginia in 2016 -who seem like the primary impetus and target of this book- are not going to read this, and would be unconvinced if they did.

All that said, the book was a fairly quick, if uneven, read. The authors' love of the subject come through, and the anecdotes were interesting (and, yes, even ‘new’ to me.) 3-ish stars, with some hesitation at not giving it 4.
( )

The Bright Ages is a 1,000 year history of medieval Europe beginning in the 400s. I selected it because I am fascinated with this era.

The publisher's summary: The word “medieval” conjures images of the “Dark Ages”—centuries of ignorance, superstition, stasis, savagery, and poor hygiene. But the myth of darkness obscures the truth; this was a remarkable period in human history. The Bright Ages recasts the European Middle Ages for what it was, capturing this 1,000-year era in all its complexity and fundamental humanity, bringing to light both its beauty and its horrors. The Bright Ages takes us through ten centuries and crisscrosses Europe and the Mediterranean, Asia and Africa, revisiting familiar people and events with new light cast upon them. We look with fresh eyes on the Fall of Rome, Charlemagne, the Vikings, the Crusades, and the Black Death, but also to the multi-religious experience of Iberia, the rise of Byzantium, and the genius of Hildegard and the power of queens. We begin under a blanket of golden stars constructed by an empress with Germanic, Roman, Spanish, Byzantine, and Christian bloodlines and end nearly 1,000 years later with the poet Dante—inspired by that same twinkling celestial canopy—writing an epic saga of heaven and hell that endures as a masterpiece of literature today. The Bright Ages reminds us just how permeable our manmade borders have always been and of what possible worlds the past has always made available to us. The Middle Ages may have been a world “lit only by fire” but it was one whose torches illuminated the magnificent rose windows of cathedrals, even as they stoked the pyres of accused heretics.

My expectation for the book was that each European country would be delved into. It does that but it is still Rome-centric. There are chapters on Rome, Jerusalem, Britain, France, Russia, Spain and Mongolia. People from other areas are covered briefly with a sentence or two. I was disappointed with this focus of the book. Alot of history was left out but note that the author covered 1,000 years of history in 250 pages. There is a 60 page bibliography at the end.

The book opened with a fascinating profile of Galla Placidia, sister and mother of Roman emporers. In addition, she was the queen of the Visigoths and led many successful battles for them. Placidia lived in the 400s. A devout Christian, she built or restored churches in Jerusalem, Rome, and in Ravenna where the book begins. This lady captivated me and I must find material to read about her. Maybe someone has written a historical novel about her? I was disappointed that other historical figures were not discussed later in the book because a fun way to learn history is through the lives of people.

I was struck by the description of the book as a new history of medieval Europe. I was expecting information new to me but halfway through I realized that I knew more about medieval history than the author. From this point I began critiquing the information he included as well as what he excluded. Too much was left out and much of what was included was not explained.

Two sentences in the last chapter refers to the Dark Ages of our present time and the author blames the U. S. for it. He states that the U. S. was founded on white supremacy. Obviously, he did not study U. S. history but as I contemplated this remark I realized The Bright Ages could be considered a history of just white people. While he centered the book on Europe, which is primarily white, he excluded the contributions of Muslims to our "white" art and literature. All the credit is given to well known Europeans. Also, I was frustrated when he mentioned the Paris physicians who were consulted on the origins of the plague. All of the medical knowledge that we have originated from the Muslims. Jewish scholars learned medicine from them and brought it to Europe. In addition, there was no mention of the contributions from North Africa to our culture. Thus, if the author wants to put blame somewhere for white supremacy let's lay it at his feet. Yes, I was offended by his remark over the founding of the U. S. as you most likely can tell. The remark came abruptly with no references so why include it?

Having taken many courses on medieval history, I feel that I can write my own history book of this era. My book would be over 1,000 pages and no one would read that! However, it would be a complete history of the era that included every area of the map and explain how each culture intermingled with each other. As such, it is hard to give The Bright Ages a rating. It delivers a Eurocentric history which is what we were promised. I will go with 3 out of 5 stars. There are probably few people as interested in this era to be as dogmatic as I am. I know we are probably a little crazy. ( )