Norman F. Cantor (1929–2004)
Author of In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made
About the Author
Norman F. Cantor is Emeritus Professor of History, Sociology, and Comparative Literature at New York University.
Image credit: BookPerk
Series
Works by Norman F. Cantor
The Civilization of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History (1964) 1,531 copies, 10 reviews
Inventing the Middle Ages: The Lives, Works, and Ideas of the Great Medievalists of the Twentieth Century (1991) 866 copies, 10 reviews
Antiquity: From the Birth of Sumerian Civilization to the Fall of the Roman Empire (2003) 489 copies, 11 reviews
The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era (2004) 425 copies, 5 reviews
Imagining the Law: Common Law and the Foundations of the American Legal System (1997) 51 copies, 1 review
The Structure of European History: Volume III Renaissance, Reformation, and Absolutism 1450-1650 (1972) 27 copies
The Modern World: 1848 to the Present/Ideas and Institutions in Western Civilization (1963) 17 copies, 1 review
The Structure of European History: Volume VI. Twentieth Century: 1914 To the Present (1967) 12 copies
The Structure of European History: Volume IV: The Fulfillment and Collapse of the Old Regime 1650 - 1815 (1970) 10 copies
Perspectives on The European Past: Conversations with Historians (2 Volumes) (1971) 9 copies, 2 reviews
The Structure of European History: Volume V: The Making of the Modern World 1815 - 1914 (1967) 7 copies
Plato and Aristotle 1 copy
Colloquium, No. 2, 1964 1 copy
A special issue on "Voice" 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Cantor, Norman F.
- Legal name
- Cantor, Norman Frank
- Birthdate
- 1929-11-19
- Date of death
- 2004-09-18
- Gender
- male
- Education
- University of Manitoba (B.A. ∙ 1951)
Princeton University (MA ∙ 1953)
Oriel College, Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar)
Princeton University (PhD - 1957) - Occupations
- medievalist
historian
writer
author
professor - Organizations
- Princeton University
Columbia University
Brandeis University
Binghamton University
University of Illinois at Chicago
New York University - Awards and honors
- Rhodes Scholar
- Agent
- Alexander C. Hoyt
- Short biography
- Norman Frank Cantor was a historian who specialized in the medieval period. He received his bachelor's degree at the University of Manitoba and his master's degree from Princeton. He spent a year at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and then earned his doctorate from Princeton in 1957. After teaching at Princeton, Prof. Cantor moved to Columbia University from 1960 to 1966; Brandeis University until 1970; SUNY Binghamton until 1976; and the University of Illinois at Chicago for two years. He went on to New York University, where he was professor of history, sociology and comparative literature. After a brief stint as Fulbright Professor at Tel Aviv University, he began to devote himself writing full-time.
- Cause of death
- heart failure
- Nationality
- Canada
- Birthplace
- Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
- Places of residence
- Miami, Florida, USA
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
New York, New York, USA
Chicago, Illinois, USA - Place of death
- Greenwich Village, New York, New York, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
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 show more 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 believes his class full of cowed undergraduates would never dare 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, Goodwin, or Tuchman? show less
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 show more 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 believes his class full of cowed undergraduates would never dare 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, Goodwin, or Tuchman? show less
A few critical reviews below have some measured points, and I thought I'd click some thumbs up and be done, but this book truly inspired me; the problem with most other reviews is that they seem to respect this book as being worthy of existence.
The book is rambling, repetitive muck.
By chapter 2 I had a mental sidebar of notes for a rage-review. I was so disgusted that I came to view Cantor's ridiculous overuse of the word "biomedical" as a major character flaw. It should have been thrown show more across the room after a few pages but I didn't want to damage anything more valuable than the book, like for example, anything. But it had to be finished. The final page had to be glimpsed. The depths had to be plumbed to see if I would run out of rope.
Some highlights for LibraryThing posterity:
Edward II's anal-rape murder "partly" reflected the Church's attitude toward homosexuality, but also reflected contemporary attitudes toward global weather patterns.
Edward III ravaged 25% of 1/3 of France.
Plantagenet Joan is constantly referred to as "little princess", so by the 3rd or 4th instance I am searching for endnotes to see if she was actually little, but no, it was just pointlessly derogatory.
In a spectacular display of relevance to plague transmission, Cantor spends an entire page of his measly 200 describing Joan's wardrobe (she had lots of buttons), seemingly for the sole purpose of punchlining the English monarchy's lack of taste "then or now".
Cantor refers to Joan as a "top-drawer white girl". That is top-shelf history right there. Approximately here I stopped cataloging disgust and just doggy-paddled the rest of the way through the slop. Slop which includes an entire section on the possibility of alien plague dust causing the epidemic.
Trees died for this - living, respirating, sun-loving trees. Absolutely, completely, unworthy of an NYU professor and Princeton Fellow, and perversely, so perversely, I am looking forward to reading Cantor's "Civilization", though I don't know if I'm searching for his redemption or more stench from the putrefaction of Academia.
This book is a plague about a plague and even reviews about it are a waste of time. show less
The book is rambling, repetitive muck.
By chapter 2 I had a mental sidebar of notes for a rage-review. I was so disgusted that I came to view Cantor's ridiculous overuse of the word "biomedical" as a major character flaw. It should have been thrown show more across the room after a few pages but I didn't want to damage anything more valuable than the book, like for example, anything. But it had to be finished. The final page had to be glimpsed. The depths had to be plumbed to see if I would run out of rope.
Some highlights for LibraryThing posterity:
Edward II's anal-rape murder "partly" reflected the Church's attitude toward homosexuality, but also reflected contemporary attitudes toward global weather patterns.
Edward III ravaged 25% of 1/3 of France.
Plantagenet Joan is constantly referred to as "little princess", so by the 3rd or 4th instance I am searching for endnotes to see if she was actually little, but no, it was just pointlessly derogatory.
In a spectacular display of relevance to plague transmission, Cantor spends an entire page of his measly 200 describing Joan's wardrobe (she had lots of buttons), seemingly for the sole purpose of punchlining the English monarchy's lack of taste "then or now".
Cantor refers to Joan as a "top-drawer white girl". That is top-shelf history right there. Approximately here I stopped cataloging disgust and just doggy-paddled the rest of the way through the slop. Slop which includes an entire section on the possibility of alien plague dust causing the epidemic.
Trees died for this - living, respirating, sun-loving trees. Absolutely, completely, unworthy of an NYU professor and Princeton Fellow, and perversely, so perversely, I am looking forward to reading Cantor's "Civilization", though I don't know if I'm searching for his redemption or more stench from the putrefaction of Academia.
This book is a plague about a plague and even reviews about it are a waste of time. show less
Cantor, a famously cantankerous historian, with a penchant for nudging the accepted stylings of history, does not disappoint in his overview of the Black Death. He covers enough of the crucial social, economic and political background to place the pandemic securely in context without bogging down the reader, even without a lot of historical knowledge going in. His dry wit and subtle humor, together with his obvious passion for the history he shares, makes the wealth of information he show more provides flow easily.
But in true Cantor style, he also gives nods to the more controversial assertions about the Black Death (about which we know surprisingly little, in fact) and shows he is willing to see the long held suppositions about the causes and effects of the plague upset. While covering his topic thoroughly, he still leaves plenty of material ready and available for the reader to pursue further.
This is an excellent beginning for an academic study of the Black death, or an equally solid overview for a more casual investigation. show less
But in true Cantor style, he also gives nods to the more controversial assertions about the Black Death (about which we know surprisingly little, in fact) and shows he is willing to see the long held suppositions about the causes and effects of the plague upset. While covering his topic thoroughly, he still leaves plenty of material ready and available for the reader to pursue further.
This is an excellent beginning for an academic study of the Black death, or an equally solid overview for a more casual investigation. show less
Inventing the Middle Ages: The Lives, Works, and Ideas of the Great Medievalists of the Twentieth Century by Norman F. Cantor
Having finished this book, I've sat and pondered for a while how best to describe Norman Cantor. Bitter? Egotistical? Historiographically wrongheaded? A raging douchebag? All those terms alone seem somewhat inadequate—perhaps some combination of all of them, with maybe a couple more thrown in.
When I came across this book in a secondhand bookstore, I knew I'd heard of it vaguely before, and the premise sounded very interesting—an exploration of the lives of some key twentieth century show more historians of the medieval period, examining their contribution to medieval studies and the historiographical context in which they wrote. I wanted to learn more about the history of the field in which I worked, and hey, it was only $3. (If only I'd mentioned the name to a professor of mine before I shelled out those three bucks—she practically spat on hearing the title. I could have spent the money on something else.)
I will not say that there's nothing useful in this book—I learned some things I hadn't known before, and have a much better sense of the connections between some key figures in the field. However, this is such a nasty, mean-spirited piece of work—a scorched-earth assessment of his colleagues which loudly trumpets Cantor's own intellectual superiority but which displays only a real inferiority of mind. Cantor was a Princeton grad and a Rhodes Scholar, but seemed to fancy himself as an establishment outsider, out to get back at The Man with Inventing the Middle Ages. The resulting book is a hatchet job which relies on dubious evidence and spurious attempts at understanding scholars' writing through incoherent psychoanalysis. Cantor seemingly despises historians of women's, Jewish, Islamic or African-American history—they are partisan ideologues, he declares, incapable of doing good work. (For white heterosexual male scholars, of course, can never engage in identity politics.) Only one female historian appears among the 27 discussed here, and even then Eileen Power is confined to a few pages in the last chapter, headed 'Outriders.'
Cantor's contextualisation of medieval history for the general reader does not make this book worth reading (it's often incorrect or woefully outdated; he clung to a conservative historiography long after it had been demonstrated to be false), nor does his turgid, adjective-laden prose. (If I had a nickel for every time he talked about a historian from Paris as a 'French mandarin', I'd probably recoup the cost of this book.) Even the bibliography at the end of 125 core books for anyone with an interest in medieval studies is laden with picks that are outdated or bizarre—what on earth is Barbara Tuchman's work doing there? Not to mention that, despite Cantor's lofty reassurances that this list has been double-checked against Princeton's (well!) own card catalogue, the reader is directed towards the work of Henri 'Pierenne', while Dáibhí Ó Cróinín becomes Dalbhi O. Cronin.
By the end, I was quite glad to see that Cantor was dismissive—actually downright offensive—about the founder of my own particular doctoral lineage. Praise from Cantor, I fear, would have been quite the indictment against his scholarship. A nasty, sneering, condescending work. Avoid. show less
When I came across this book in a secondhand bookstore, I knew I'd heard of it vaguely before, and the premise sounded very interesting—an exploration of the lives of some key twentieth century show more historians of the medieval period, examining their contribution to medieval studies and the historiographical context in which they wrote. I wanted to learn more about the history of the field in which I worked, and hey, it was only $3. (If only I'd mentioned the name to a professor of mine before I shelled out those three bucks—she practically spat on hearing the title. I could have spent the money on something else.)
I will not say that there's nothing useful in this book—I learned some things I hadn't known before, and have a much better sense of the connections between some key figures in the field. However, this is such a nasty, mean-spirited piece of work—a scorched-earth assessment of his colleagues which loudly trumpets Cantor's own intellectual superiority but which displays only a real inferiority of mind. Cantor was a Princeton grad and a Rhodes Scholar, but seemed to fancy himself as an establishment outsider, out to get back at The Man with Inventing the Middle Ages. The resulting book is a hatchet job which relies on dubious evidence and spurious attempts at understanding scholars' writing through incoherent psychoanalysis. Cantor seemingly despises historians of women's, Jewish, Islamic or African-American history—they are partisan ideologues, he declares, incapable of doing good work. (For white heterosexual male scholars, of course, can never engage in identity politics.) Only one female historian appears among the 27 discussed here, and even then Eileen Power is confined to a few pages in the last chapter, headed 'Outriders.'
Cantor's contextualisation of medieval history for the general reader does not make this book worth reading (it's often incorrect or woefully outdated; he clung to a conservative historiography long after it had been demonstrated to be false), nor does his turgid, adjective-laden prose. (If I had a nickel for every time he talked about a historian from Paris as a 'French mandarin', I'd probably recoup the cost of this book.) Even the bibliography at the end of 125 core books for anyone with an interest in medieval studies is laden with picks that are outdated or bizarre—what on earth is Barbara Tuchman's work doing there? Not to mention that, despite Cantor's lofty reassurances that this list has been double-checked against Princeton's (well!) own card catalogue, the reader is directed towards the work of Henri 'Pierenne', while Dáibhí Ó Cróinín becomes Dalbhi O. Cronin.
By the end, I was quite glad to see that Cantor was dismissive—actually downright offensive—about the founder of my own particular doctoral lineage. Praise from Cantor, I fear, would have been quite the indictment against his scholarship. A nasty, sneering, condescending work. Avoid. show less
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- #2,695
- Rating
- 3.5
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