Golden Ages Dark Ages

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1991.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1991.

The Golden Ages of the Dark Ages is an exciting historical analysis about the civilizations and empires that exist around the globe during the European Dark Ages. The use of the maps in the chapters allows readers to visualize the civilizations development away from Europe. There are too many civilizations to compile. Thus, this book is based on two basic philosophies that the time line is limited only to the prominent civilizations within 500 CE to 1500 CE and also to have a minimum of 100 years of history. Readers too must acknowledge that there were many other great world civilizations within and outside of the time line. We can only pick a handful of the civilizations, traditions and empires. This is a factual book that might create further interests for readers to explore in depth some of the revelations. This book too is hoped to help readers to critically analyze their past readings as history has been proven to be distorted by some of the historians.

The Golden Ages of the Dark Ages is an exciting historical analysis about the civilizations and empires that exist around the globe during the European Dark Ages. The use of the maps in the chapters allows readers to visualize the civilizations development away from Europe. There are too many civilizations to compile. Thus, this book is based on two basic philosophies that the time line is limited only to the prominent civilizations within 500 CE to 1500 CE and also to have a minimum of 100 years of history. Readers too must acknowledge that there were many other great world civilizations within and outside of the time line. We can only pick a handful of the civilizations, traditions and empires. This is a factual book that might create further interests for readers to explore in depth some of the revelations. This book too is hoped to help readers to critically analyze their past readings as history has been proven to be distorted by some of the historians.

"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 Globe A 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.

Studies of the influence of the middle ages on aspects of European and American life and culture from 16c to the present day.

A "lively and engaging" history of the Middle Ages (Dallas Morning News) from the acclaimed historian William Manchester, author of The Last Lion. From tales of chivalrous knights to the barbarity of trial by ordeal, no era has been a greater source of awe, horror, and wonder than the Middle Ages. In handsomely crafted prose, and with the grace and authority of his extraordinary gift for narrative history, William Manchester leads us from a civilization tottering on the brink of collapse to the grandeur of its rebirth: the dense explosion of energy that spawned some of history's greatest poets, philosophers, painters, adventurers, and reformers, as well as some of its most spectacular villains. "Manchester provides easy access to a fascinating age when our modern mentality was just being born." --Chicago Tribune

Covers all significant eras of global history. Encourages students to analyze evidence, documents, and other data to make informed decisions. Develops essential writing skills.