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Loading... An Economic and Social History of Later Medieval Europe, 1000-1500by Steven A. Epstein
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This is a solid survey of European economic and social history in the High and Late Middle Ages which manages the feet of being quite well-written and organised. There are two things which for me set this above the general run of college-level textbooks that are assigned in history survey classes in the U.S. One is the price: at $30, it's not super cheap but it's definitely not the eye-watering rates charged by a lot of textbook publishers. The other is that Epstein resolutely does not patronise the reader. There are passages which a first-year student might find challenging, and Epstein oddly takes for granted that your average undergraduate is going to understand what he means by Malthusian theories of demographic change. He references them repeatedly throughout the text but never actually says who Malthus was, or even makes it clear that these are not medieval ideas. Still, it seemed like my students overall responded well to the text, and found it gave them more to grapple with intellectually than the glossier textbooks which tend to have lavish images (the only illustrations here are in sometimes difficult to read greyscale) but are pitched at the reading level of the average 14 or 15 year old. ( ) no reviews | add a review
This book examines the most important themes in European social and economic history from the beginning of growth around the year 1000 to the first wave of global exchange in the 1490s. These five hundred years witnessed the rise of economic systems, and the social theories that would have a profound influence on the rest of the world over the next five centuries. Surveying the full extent of Europe, from east to west and north to south, Steven Epstein illuminates family life, economic and social thought, war, technologies, and other major themes while giving equal attention to developments in trade, crafts, and agriculture. The great waves of famine and then plague in the fourteenth century provide the centerpiece of a book that seeks to explain the causes of Europe's uneven prosperity and its response to catastrophic levels of death. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)940.17History and Geography Europe Europe Medieval 476-1453 Age of chivalry 1100-1453LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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