The History of the Medieval World

The History of the Medieval World by Susan Wise Bauer
746 Pages
Recommended: 2/5

I do not recommend the book, and had to strain myself to finish it- it took me nearly a whole month to plow through it.

The prose is orderly and understandable, but the book's organization is frustrating. Susan Wise Bauer spends 10-15 pages on a topic or civilization, then, without warning, jumps somewhere else on the globe. She will go from covering the Byzantine Empire then suddenly jump to the ancient Chinese or Indians. I found the style to be very disengaging.

The frustrating thing is that each 10-15 page bit is interesting. I really find early Medieval history to be interesting, especially concerning the Byzantine and French kingdoms. Reading this book, however, feels like reading a bunch of wikipedia articles.