Medieval Horizons, Ian Mortimer
Medieval Horizons, Ian Mortimer
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Medieval Horizons
Why The Middle Ages Matter

Author: Ian Mortimer

Narrator: Ian Mortimer

Unabridged: 10 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/23/2024


Synopsis

The essential introduction to the Middle Ages by the bestselling author of The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England

We tend to think of the Middle Ages as a dark, backward, and unchanging time characterized by violence, ignorance, and superstition. By contrast we believe progress arose from science and technological innovation, and that inventions of recent centuries created the modern world.

We couldn't be more wrong. As Ian Mortimer shows in this fascinating book, people's horizons—their knowledge, experience, and understanding of the world—expanded dramatically. Life was utterly transformed between 1000 and 1600, marking the transition from a warrior-led society to that of Shakespeare.

Just as The 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 era as a whole. It outlines the enormous cultural changes that took place—from literacy to living standards, inequality, and even the developing sense of self—thereby correcting misconceptions and presenting the period as a revolutionary age of fundamental importance in the development of the Western world.

About Ian Mortimer

Ian Mortimer is a British historian and historical fiction author. He holds a PhD from the University of Exeter and a master's degree from the University of London, and is currently a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He is the author of the Sunday Times bestselling book A Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan London, as well as detailed biographies of Roger Mortimer, First Earl of March, Edward III, Henry IV, and Henry V. He is well known for developing and promoting the theory that Edward II did not meet his end in Berkeley Castle in 1327, as is held by conventional theory. His historical fiction novel, the first book in the Clarenceux Trilogy, was published under the alias of James Forrester.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jacob on May 16, 2023

As a medievalist, I have to admit I’m partial to a book seeking to re-assert medieval history’s supremacy, and this book, with its central metaphor of broadening horizons, does much to challenge the popular understanding of ‘medieval’. Although Mortimer did outline his own rationale for defining the......more

Goodreads review by Quenby on December 02, 2024

Mortimer is a good narrator of his book on Medieval England, and I really enjoyed his historical approach of examining how different events broadened the views of people from that time. Since there are famously few documents from that period, Mortimer examines the behaviors of people as different ev......more

Goodreads review by Mel on November 30, 2023

This book cements Ian Mortimer as one of my very favourite historians. His enthusiasm for Medieval history is infectious, and his passion for detail is astonishing. I have a new found appreciation of the advances made from 1000 - 1600 in England but suspect that the entire inspiration for this book......more

Goodreads review by Jon on April 07, 2024

Interesting read, but rather too much special pleading to make the author's case convincingly. Also falls into the same trap of broad brush generalisation that he accuses others of - e.g. serfdom wasn't the same everywhere, or all the time, and his view of early medieval Europe (i.e. pre 11thC) is p......more

Goodreads review by Mark on June 14, 2023

Five stars easily earned. I took my time with this book because I wanted to appreciate the message. Never again will I look at the 'Middle Ages' as some stagnant, backward age, void of intellectual curiosity. Five stars.......more