I did not like this book. The authors give a high-level summary of the years 450 - 1350, but rarely go into any details. What they say rarely goes beyond what every discussion of the time period in a chapter says. They evidence the contempt for primary sources that seems endemic to modern historians. They rarely make any kind of historical thesis, and when they do not back it up. They usually did not explain the culture of the times, nor did they discuss the cultural, political, and/or religious trends beyond a cursory analysis. They talk about beauty and brightness, but all they can say seems to be that middle ages are multicultural. The whole thing feels like a Progressive argument against “white nationalists” (fairly explicitly stated in epilogue) in the guise of a history.

This book rarely gets down to the details of any sort argument. The book starts out with the Mausoleum of empress Galla Placidia in Ravenna, Italy, and ends back in Ravenna with Dante in exile, which is about nine hundred years, so in some respects that is inevitable. However, A History of Christian Theology covers two millenia in fewer pages, and is so dense that I spent twice as much time summarizing it in the notes as I did reading it. Similarly, Tom Holland’s Dominion also covers two millenia, but in twice the pages, and gives intricate details of lives it covers. There are, in fact many details in this book, but they are not useful. We might get a list of major events in a character’s life, but rarely enough to get a feeling of the person, the character of the times, or their political and religious context. Or we get a list of major events by the Vikings, but we do not get to understand their values, strengths, weaknesses, goals, or how their wide-ranging travels affected them or those they came into contact with.

The events and people discussed in each time period are a high-level overview. They generally focus on the lesser known major figures of the times, especially woman, but if you have read anything on a given time period, you will already know most of what is said. For that matter, if you read Dominion, you will know more about those characters. For instance, they make the point that there were powerful women in the middle ages, and talk about Elanor of Aquitaine and Hildegarde von Bingen; anyone who talks about women in the middle ages talks about those two. I am not advocating only talking about minor characters that no one has every heard of, but I do expect “A New History” to not give a high level overview of the same things covered in more detail by everyone else.

There are occasional bright spots. I did like the literary comments about the writings of “Marie”, who wrote the short stories Lais. The writer was had detailed knowledge of how the Court works, so was presumably fairly high up in Henry II and Elanor’s court. They suggest that the way she tells the Arthur stories is a commentary, possibly a warning, to Henry about his wife—her Guinevere is power-hungry, lusty and not very faithful, and Arthur weak, in ways that are suggestive of Elanor and Henry. My exposure to Arthurian tradition is limited to T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, I think this literary analysis explains some of oddities of the Arthurian tradition, like why, in a depiction of an age of chivalry and quests for holiness, are Guinevere and Lancelot. I would not expect an adulterous relationship at the center in a golden age.

Since the authors never advance a coherent thesis, the best I can glean from what assertions they do make, is that the middle ages are Bright mostly because it is a multicultural age, and partly because woman are much more equal to men than modern people stereotypically think. The book consistently highlights the free flow of people and ideas (and plague) between Europe, northern Africa, and Asia. At one point they say that European countries were never the uniform ethnic states that white nationalists from the 1800s made them out to be. There were always Muslims and Africans in Britain. There was relatively equality between men and women because there were powerful women, and some of these, like empress Galla Placidia were conniving as well as good rulers.

First of all, they do not demonstrate their assertions. (In fact, the assertions are more like a random sentence here and there, rather than a coherent argument.) While I do not doubt that there were Africans and Muslims in Britain in the middle ages, the authors do not demonstrate this, they simply assert it. But how many of them were there? A handful of Africans and Muslims in a sea of British peasants is hardly a multicultural landscape; I would consider that a pretty solid traditional ethnic culture. Likewise, women may have been relatively equal to men, but they authors do not demonstrate this. The existence of a few powerful women says nothing about the majority of women, or even high status women. Everyone knows Elanor of Aquitaine and Hildegarde von Bingen, but after that, what names are there? There are always anomalies, but citing some statistical outliers is not convincing.

Second, if my thesis about their thesis is correct, why is multiculturalism so Bright? Why judge the middle ages on that as a metric? (They do mention beauty, but never talk about it beyond the Mausoleum and  the stained glass windows of Sainte Chapelle.) Why are the middle ages Bright because of equality of women? Are the middle ages Bright because the authors see in them the contemporary Progressive values of multiculturalism and feminism? Is the reason we need a “New History” because they see the middle ages as Progressive and thus refuting the “white nationalists” that they occasionally go on a self-righteous diatribe against?

The sad thing is that the topics they want to push could actually make an interesting book. I am not interested in reading about women in the middle ages as yet another tired inversion of “traditional” values (in this case talking only about important people like kings). But women in the middle ages are an interesting topic, and there are a lot of interesting women. I am not interested in reading about unimportant people as a subconscious rebellion against those in power or as part of some narrative about “oppression”. But I am interested in what daily life was like for normal people. I am not interested in multiculturalism as trying to atone for the sins of Nazi Germany, or as trying to atone for historical racism. But it is interesting to know about the relative ease of information and people of different cultures flowing around Europe, and how that influenced things. I am also not very interested in history as Christian evangelism, so this is not just a political thing. History motivated by ideology, whether it is Christian or Progressivism is just not interesting.

The authors follow what seems to be the modern history view of dismissing primary sources with “of course, X could not possibly have happened”. The authors occasionally reveal that they are capable of nuanced, insightful observations, as they attempt to figure out how to think with a medieval Christian mindset. But then they blow it by just dismissing things like one source seeing a vision. Now I am not opposed to the idea that some supernatural event was ... embellished, or more charitably, lost nothing in the telling over a couple centuries, but you have to actually make that argument. I’m tired of reading “of course, the apostle Paul did not write half his letters” (Thomas Cahill), “of course, the Romans could not possibly have maintained an accurate list of consuls over three hundred years, despite all they had to do was chisel this year’s consul’s name below last year’s” (Mary Beard). I actually know someone who heard the audible voice of God (at least, an audible voice of some non-human kind), and it led to him meeting his wife. I have personally witnessed people being miraculously healed. So let’s get over the smug view of ancient writers as inferior to us. Sure, they are pushing an agenda. So are the authors. How would they like it if I just replaced this review with, “of course, the authors can’t possibly have their history right” just because they make implicit claims like medieval England is multicultural because there are a handful of Muslims and Africans in the country and ignore the obvious fact that medieval England was overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon with a Norman upper class?

As a tangential point, people occasionally note that ancient histories were about explaining the meaning of events, while modern history is understanding the mere facts about what actually happened, and what caused it. I think that this book and Dominion are examples of a shift back towards the ancient view of history. Dominion looks at European history through the lens of how Christianity is the foundation of the modern world, and that even our rejection of Christianity still maintains the fundamental Christian values. This book seems to look at the middle ages as a counter-argument to “white nationalists” of 1800 and today claims of past ethnic purity. Both function more as history as meaning, rather than history as facts and causes.

If you know nothing about the middle ages, this book is useful. If you are a Progressive resident of an American coastal city, you will be happy to read how, sometimes, the middle ages had examples of peaceful multiculturalism and women living the feminist dream. If you want to actually understand the culture of the middle ages, or what trends were driving the middle ages, find a different book. Dominion has a somewhat narrow view of the time period (and I have my criticisms of it, too), but you will learn a whole lot more.