In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made (2001)

Like many tragedies, the plague left an altered world in its horrific wake. Cantor’s stated purpose is to provide a description of the Black Death “and the world it made,” with emphasis on identifying some of the “winners/losers” that emerged after the series of plagues that swept through Europe in the 13th-14th century.

A fascinating topic, yes? And given Cantor’s rep as a “leading American historian of the Middle Ages,” I picked this up enthusiastically, anticipating a thorough, orderly, scholarly exploration of the topic. However, that’s not quite what happened. Instead of a textbook, what I got felt more like a curmudgeonly old college professor whipping through the entire curriculum of his oft-taught “Europe Before and After the Plague” class without bothering to consult his notes.

For one thing, Cantor’s choice of content seems driven by personal interest/preference rather than logic. For every page that actually addresses information relevant to the topic, Cantor includes pages and pages of tangential information, including long back-stories on people/institutions (Cardinal Bradwardine, the Occam-Marsilio heresy, the antecedents of the French wine industry) that are often interesting but end up having little (or nothing) to do with the topic. Much of the time I had the sense that Cantor’s research/knowledge was guiding his narrative, rather than his narrative synthesizing the research.

Also, organization of the material is (to be generous) eclectic, whipping through time and across themes with little logic, with some anecdotes repeated multiple times (as if the storyteller forgot he’d already shared them) and an ending so abrupt that you can practically hear the bell ringing, signaling the end of class.

Finally, Cantor repeatedly presents dubious/biased material with the supreme self-confidence of a professor who knows that his class full of cowed undergraduates will never muster up the courage to challenge him. I tolerated his rants against certain historical personages (Edward III is described, with no substantiating detail, as an “avaricious and sadistic thug”, and what exactly was the narrative purpose of Richard II's sexual preferences?:); I endured his factually dubious tangent about Lollardism; but the part at the end where he appears to endorse the notion that the plague came from space dust is where I began to lose my patience.

If you’re a history “generalist”, then this may be worth the read. As a general survey of the Medieval period, the text works well; Cantor is an engaging (if erratic) storyteller who knows how to synthesize lots of ideas into a whole. But if your interest is in a thorough, accurate, and unbiased exploration of “The Black Death and the World It Made” (to quote the subtitle), allow me to save you the time and present the Cliff’s Notes version: wives, property lawyers, and yeoman peasants benefited; the Lancastrians kings of England, The Holy Roman Empire, scientific exploration, and the Jews suffered; and art, religion, monarchies and philosophy mostly emerged a draw. Now go pick up something equally entertaining but a little less erratic: might I recommend something by Boorstin, Ambrose, or Tuchman? ( )

Of all of Norman Cantor's books about the Middle Ages, this is by far the worst! Cantor was once a decent (though never great) medieval historian, but that time has long past. This book is not only poorly written/edited, but it is also wildly inaccurate. Its clear that the intended audience of this book is the general public and it is not for a specialist, but that does not make it acceptable to sensationalize/misrepresent facts in the guise of making the subject more interesting or more accessible. The problems with the content are too numerous to list individually, but I have listed a couple of the most glaring ones. First, he makes absurd and unsubstantiated claims (see section on how cosmic dust may have caused the plague) and he cites unverified legends as facts to support his scattered and incoherent argument (see the passages about the ring around the rosy song). His sloppy and casual presentation also leads him to make mistakes in terminology, like referring to women's garments as corsets even though corsets weren't worn until nearly 200 years later. Second, he is a very judgmental historian imposing his 20th century belief system on a 14th century society. Please don't misunderstand. As a medieval historian myself, I am completely aware that all interpretations of history are biased by the author's own views, but that does not mean you should dismiss your historical subject as backward, stupid, or laughable. In a wasted effort to be light-hearted (which is especially strange considering he is writing a treatise about pestilence and disease that ravaged a continent), he comes off as callous and insensitive, particularly in his discussion of Jews where he gets perilously close to blaming them for their own persecution. Even if you could put aside the numerous factual errors, the book is also almost impossible to read. It is repetitive, disjointed, and it appears never to have been edited. Cantor spends about a third of the book discussing the topic of this treatise (mostly inaccurately as I have already discussed) and then spends the remainder of the book going off on unrelated and poorly connected tangents rife with run-on sentences and incorrectly used vocabulary. He offers no new insights into this field and will lead newcomers to medieval history astray. Please do not waste your time reading this book. You will only be misinformed and aggravated. If I could give the book no stars, I would. Quite possibly the worst book of medieval history that I have ever been forced to read. ( )

I could not get over the impression that the author was really disappointed and angry at medieval people for being, well, so medieval. How could they not understand that scientific method is king and the only way to combat the plague? How dared they rely on prayers and quarantine? Why did they 'waste' their knowledge of chemistry on alchemy (what he means by that rather silly statement anyway is unclear to me)? It's just a very odd attitude for a historian to take, I think. Obviously they didn't know about germs, but he makes it seem like the people in the 14th century are somehow to blame for not being scientifically enlightened.

In addition, I found the book to be rather scattered. Sometimes the author would switch to a new topic in the next paragraph without any reason for doing so, or throw in some idea only to abandon it two sentences later. Random facts about lords and royalty pepper the text without any particular rhyme or reason. He also obviously has some kind of issue with homosexuality.

The author also makes very critical and often derogatory assertions about certain issues without backing any of them with evidence or even mentioning that there might be another view. At one point, he describes the notion of Buddhist enlightenment/nirvana as a 'negative mysticism', a 'depersonalization', which shows that he knows very little on this particular topic.

Overall, a very unstructured, very angry book. To be honest, at times I even got the impression that it wasn't actually a book about the plague, but a way to vent anger at medieval society, the ruling class, antisemitism, and who knows what else. ( )

I love reading books about plagues and diseases and I really wanted to like this book. I picked it up in an airport a few years ago. It's a fast and easy read, but it's extremely disjointed and unorganized. It is informative to an extent, and does throw out a couple of interesting ideas. Overall, however, I don't think it's a very good book and I can't wait to sell it back to a used book store. ( )

I love reading books about plagues and diseases and I really wanted to like this book. I picked it up in an airport a few years ago. It's a fast and easy read, but it's extremely disjointed and unorganized. It is informative to an extent, and does throw out a couple of interesting ideas. Overall, however, I don't think it's a very good book and I can't wait to sell it back to a used book store. ( )