City Travel Guides
Home Page > Go back a page
Books : Strange Landscape: Journey Through the Middle Ages
Search Books - select a category
Rating: 
- Excellent though selective
This is the BBC book that accompanied a series that I didn't see: in it Frayling engages with the Middle Ages and reveals the period to be both familiar and alienating. He starts with a chapter taking an interesting look at out reception of medieval culture - from heavy metal to Lord of the Rings, via some genuine scholarly work, and then selects areas to focus on: medieval religious architecture, the clash of reason and faith personified by Abelard (and Heloise) vs. Bernard de Clairvaux, Dante's Divine Comedy.
This is a stimulating and interesting book both for the specialist and (as it's a BBC book) for anyone with an interest in this period. He doesn't eschew but equally doesn't focus on the usual historical stuff i.e. crusades, knights, courtly love etc, so to that extent it might assume a certain amount of knowledge on the side of the reader, and it ends with a short appendix on the current state of medieval studies which is useful for the student but perhaps not for a general reader.
The hardback version is also beautifully illustrated and well worth the price for the pictures alone. Altogether, well recommended.
- Excellent though selectiveThis is the BBC book that accompanied a series that I didn't see: in it Frayling engages with the Middle Ages and reveals the period to be both familiar and alienating. He starts with a chapter taking an interesting look at out reception of medieval culture - from heavy metal to Lord of the Rings, via some genuine scholarly work, and then selects areas to focus on: medieval religious architecture, the clash of reason and faith personified by Abelard (and Heloise) vs. Bernard de Clairvaux, Dante's Divine Comedy.
This is a stimulating and interesting book both for the specialist and (as it's a BBC book) for anyone with an interest in this period. He doesn't eschew but equally doesn't focus on the usual historical stuff i.e. crusades, knights, courtly love etc, so to that extent it might assume a certain amount of knowledge on the side of the reader, and it ends with a short appendix on the current state of medieval studies which is useful for the student but perhaps not for a general reader.
The hardback version is also beautifully illustrated and well worth the price for the pictures alone. Altogether, well recommended.