Search results for ""author matthew gabriele""

This volume explores a world that thought deeply about imperial power and emperors but one that perhaps never had an “empire” of its own. These synthetic essays from experts across a wide variety of disciplines mine the intellectual world of this period and begin to demolish the myth of the so-called “Dark Ages,” showing how the European Middle Ages were illuminated by vigorous debates that echo today. The story of medieval Western empires is both familiar and foreign. It is a story about politics, culture, religion, society, gender, sex, and economics, and how porous the boundaries between those categories can often be. A Cultural History of Western Empires in the Middle Ages offers a detailed and highly-illustrated account of how we got to where we are, as well as the dangers of not fully understanding why those origins matter.

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This volume explores a world that thought deeply about imperial power and emperors but one that perhaps never had an “empire” of its own. These synthetic essays from experts across a wide variety of disciplines mine the intellectual world of this period and begin to demolish the myth of the so-called “Dark Ages,” showing how the European Middle Ages were illuminated by vigorous debates that echo today. The story of medieval Western empires is both familiar and foreign. It is a story about politics, culture, religion, society, gender, sex, and economics, and how porous the boundaries between those categories can often be. A Cultural History of Western Empires in the Middle Ages offers a detailed and highly-illustrated account of how we got to where we are, as well as the dangers of not fully understanding why those origins matter.

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"The beauty and levity that Perry and Gabriele have captured in this book are what I think will help it to become a standard text for general audiences for years to come….The Bright Ages is a rare thing—a nuanced historical work that almost anyone can enjoy reading.”—Slate"Incandescent and ultimately intoxicating." —The Boston GlobeA lively and magisterial popular history that refutes common misperceptions of the European Middle Ages, showing the beauty and communion that flourished alongside the dark brutality—a brilliant reflection of humanity itself.The word “medieval” conjures images of the “Dark Ages”—centuries of ignorance, superstition, stasis, savagery, and poor hygiene. But the myth of darkness obscures the truth; this was a remarkable period in human history. The Bright Ages recasts the European Middle Ages for what it was, capturing this 1,000-year era in all its complexity and fundamental humanity, bringing to light both its beauty and its horrors. The Bright Ages takes us through ten centuries and crisscrosses Europe and the Mediterranean, Asia and Africa, revisiting familiar people and events with new light cast upon them. We look with fresh eyes on the Fall of Rome, Charlemagne, the Vikings, the Crusades, and the Black Death, but also to the multi-religious experience of Iberia, the rise of Byzantium, and the genius of Hildegard and the power of queens. We begin under a blanket of golden stars constructed by an empress with Germanic, Roman, Spanish, Byzantine, and Christian bloodlines and end nearly 1,000 years later with the poet Dante—inspired by that same twinkling celestial canopy—writing an epic saga of heaven and hell that endures as a masterpiece of literature today. The Bright Ages reminds us just how permeable our manmade borders have always been and of what possible worlds the past has always made available to us. The Middle Ages may have been a world “lit only by fire” but it was one whose torches illuminated the magnificent rose windows of cathedrals, even as they stoked the pyres of accused heretics. The Bright Ages contains an 8-page color insert.

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