All things considered, "A World Lit Only by Fire" is not William Manchester's best book. Not by a long shot.

Those who claim there's nothing new here are right. On the other hand, much of what Manchester tells here is still not well-known to the religious laity nor even to the proverbial "man on the street". My own guess is that at least 95 percent of the world's Lutherans are totally ignorant of the fact that Martin Luther was as crazy as a crap-house mouse. And if Catholics are more worldly (They seem so to me.), that's not because the Roman church makes a practice of airing its spotted shorts in Vatican Square on Easter Sunday.

Those who claim Manchester shows prejudice here are right. But that in itself is nothing new. I cannot speak of his earlier work -- "The Arms of Krupp," the Churchill trilogy, etc. -- because I have not read it. But those like me who've read Manchester's war memoir, "Goodbye, Darkness," have seen that side of him before.

My experience is that Manchester's prejudices are shared among the rest of those whom Tom Brokaw was pleased to call "The Greatest Generation." But Brokaw's career in journalism displays both a narrow perception and a total lack of insight. So it should come as no surprise that a hard-eyed look at the World War II generation reveals that they were just ordinary people. Like all other twentieth-century Americans, they were a generation systematically lied to as children and young adults. Hence they went to war with set of beliefs that the reality of war utterly destroyed.

Summing up, I think of the World War II generation more realistically than stupid Mr. Brokaw: They were the generation that dismantled Fascism in Germany, Italy and Japan -- and then brought it home for the rest of us to enjoy. . . .

But that's another story, isn't it?

So "A World Lit Only by Fire" is not great history by anybody's standards. Even so, I came away from the experience knowing much more about Martin Luther than I'd ever known before. I thoroughly enjoyed the chapter on Magellan, and I'm grateful to Manchester for those two gifts -- which only cost me $22.95 (or thereabouts). My reading also taught me that Manchester was a fine writer. If I ever exhaust my list of things to read before I die, I'll pick up "The Arms of Krupp" and the Churchill trilogy and some of that other stuff and read every word before I throw it on the fire. I expect the smoke from such a blaze will flavor my tea nicely. ( )

A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an Age… by William Manchester
William Manchester has the unusual ability to tell a captivating story. Here, he vividly presents the tale of how the West emerged from the darkness of the Middle Ages to the brilliance of the Renaissance.

We first travel with the author through the horrors of the Dark and Middle Ages: “Life expectancy was brief; half the people of Europe died, usually from disease, before reaching their thirtieth birthday….At forty-five [a man’s] hair was as white, back as bent and face as knurled as an octogenarian’s today….The toll at childbirth was appalling. A young girl’s life expectancy was twenty-four.” The portrait that emerges is one of “incessant warfare, corruption, lawlessness, obsession with strange myths and an almost impenetrable mindlessness.” It is this last that Manchester names as the root of that miserable era.

We see the omnipresent religious persecution - the fear, the torture, the agonizing deaths inflicted upon anyone suspected of disagreeing with the Church. The author astutely links the terror and bloodshed of the Medieval age to the Church's view of reason: "The devout scorned reason. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), the most influential Christian of his time, bore a deep distrust of the intellect and declared that the pursuit of knowledge, unless sanctified by a holy mission, was a pagan act and therefore vile."

It was this crippling mysticism that the Renaissance eventually overthrew. "Abandoning the past's preoccupation with eternity, humanists preached enrichment of life in the here and now. Their message, reversing ten centuries of solemnity, was hearty - an expression of confidence that men would learn to understand, and then master, natural forces, that they could grasp the nature of the universe, even shape their individual destinies.

This new philosophy, Manchester explains, opened up the world to unlimited exploration. For Manchester, this new quest for knowledge was epitomized by Magellan, the first man to circumnavigate the world, whose inspiring story he proceeds to relate.

"The hero" - Manchester writes - "acts alone, without encouragement, relying solely on conviction and his own inner resources....He pursues his vision single-mindedly." Magellan was such an individual. He typified, in the author's view, the forces that shattered the stagnant boundaries and replaced them with unrestricted horizons - the horizons of the world of the Renaissance.

This is a book that gives us the "big-picture" perspective on history. It is - despite the author's occasional inclusion of unnecessarily crude details - an enlightening and perceptive work. ( ) ( )

If I had to describe this book in one word alone, I'd have to choose "narrow-minded." Manchester is narrow-minded in the sense that he refuses to think of those living during the Middle Ages as having any sort of variety of temperament or belief--he speaks constantly in terms of "the Medieval man" as though he were one being. It is possible to discuss trends without generalizing in such an intellectually dishonest way.

Still, it's an interesting read, if you don't mind doing your homework afterward and realizing that Manchester chooses to simply ignore any evidence of progress or creativity which conflicts with his thesis. I keep it around as a "don'ts" list for use in my own sholarship. ( )

An excellent introduction to those turbulent but fascinating times. Even the reader who has no background in Medieval history will come away with a better understanding of the Renaissance and how we of the 21st Century still benefit from the human accomplishments and failures which characterized that era. ( )

This is a bit of "required reading". My son is taking a European History course this year and this was his first reading assignment. I read ahead so I could discuss with him (he's feeling a little intimidated by the course work). Mr. Manchester's style is very readable and this work definitely gives a real flavor of the time period. He does a good job of tracing movements and elements that led to various transformations during this time period. There are some fairly explicit descriptions of the sexual exploits of various Catholic leaders of the time - not sure if I really wanted to know that much! Overall a good introductory glimpse of the period ( )