Middle Ages Books

A fantastic premise and well-designed puzzles hold the interest of a wide range of age groups while educating and fine-tuning motor skills. Very elaborate puzzles -- be warned that dots and numbers are tiny, so kids with vision or coordination problems may be easily frustrated with this series.

What a neat book this is! I was looking for summer fun for a child that has poor handwriting. I knew he would find most dot-to-dots boring and wouldn't do them. This one, well, it's hard to wrestle it away from him. This dot-to-dot actually has a story line, and you have to complete the puzzles to save the day. It has history and adventure, and it's a good activity for travel or quiet times. The puzzles are substantial - they can have over 300 dots, so it takes a long time to work through the book. In fact, we enjoyed the book so much that I ended up at this page searching for more Dotto books.

Buddhist monk, Zen master, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Nhat Hanh takes the reader to Vietnam's age of myths and folklore in The Dragon Prince: Stories and Legends from Vietnam. The fifteen stories within include traditional and historical legends as well as brand new folktales inspires by Vietnam's recent past. Key themes within the tales extol the virtues of cooperation, reconciliation, mindfulness, and the importance of understanding that all beings are truly interconnected. A handful of simple, stylized black-and-white illustrations enhance this wonderful collection, highly recommended especially for community library collections and non-specialist general readers with an interest in mythology and folklore from around the world.

A wonderful book of beautiful and captivating legends. I loved it. The tales are beautifully told by Thich Nhat Han. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

An extremely well-written thoroughly-explained book, it provides an expressive picture of everyday life of the Ancient Egyptians and the pharaohs of the time. In the first chapter, the history of the dynastic era (2700-1750 B.C.E.) is briefly summarized. Throughout the remainder of the book, the author attempts to recreate the daily lives, labours and religious beliefs of the Ancient Egyptians, with the aid of letters, artifacts, hieroglyphic inscriptions and tomb scenes. Highly recommended for all and particularly for those whose primary interest lies in the Age of the Pyramids.

This book is for the person just beginning to read about Ancient Egypt, as well as the more advanced reader. It's scholarly, well-organized, and up-to-date, but this narrative of the Old and Middle Kingdoms, and people who lived in those times, is also vivid and moving. Day-to-day life of those long gone becomes real, for Guillemette Andreu has given the Ancient Egyptians the immortality they yearned for. I haven't seen the book in its original French, but the translation by David Lorton must be excellent, it reads so well.

This is the textbook you wish you'd had when you studied history in school. Maurice Keen presents a thouroughly researched and well thought out overview of the primary social and political events of England from the reign of Edward I to that of Richard III. He starts with the death of Alexander III of Scotland and the political crisis that ensued, leading England into the wars of Scottish independence. He analyzes the wars from an economic as well as a political and social perspective, and presents convincing arguments for why Edward II was an unsuccessful king and Edward III more effective. He examines the role of the church during the later middle ages and sets the stage for England's eventual reformation of the church in the Tudor era. The Hundred Years War is examined not in the details of its battles, but in its effect on English politics and society and how its cost changed the relationship between the king and English nobility. In every chapter Keen takes the reader through how the acts of the various rulers during this time period had a profound and lasting effect on all segments of English society, from the nobility to the clergy to the merchants to the peasants.

Although some of the economic arrangements are difficult to follow in places, at least for someone without a background in economics, Keen's prose is highly readable, grammatically correct and eloquent, and the chapters are divided into manageable and logical chunks. Keen's footnotes are largely references to his considerable source material and can be safely ignored except by those interested in the specific backup for a point of reference. Keen doesn't seem to have a political agenda, which is a refreshing change from most books on the period.

I suspect this book might be a little bit difficult for someone without at least a basic knowledge of the time period, but much less so than many of the scholarly and even some of the less scholarly works covering this period. This is, in short, a book that is highly readable from cover to cover, and a great straightforward examination of the political, social and economic changes that occurred in England between the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the Renaissance.

This is a fascinating and erudite overview of medieval Europe - one that combines lucidity and accessibility with an exceedingly high level of scholarship. Maurice Keen is a distinguished proponent of the Southern tradition of medieval history, and a ready reminder that the school of Bruce McFarlane is not the only voice of Oxford medievalism.

With Domination and Conquest Davies, one of the most prominent historians of the "British" middle ages, has put together a gem of a book. Davies' fundamental purpose here is to put an end to many of the misconceptions about the Anglicization of Britain and Ireland. Beginning with a discussion of the difference between domination and conquest, Davies helps us see that the military aspect of this episode in history is not as important as it often appears. From here Davies moves on to shatter the idea of a concerted and organized Anglo-Norman endeavor to conquer and dominate the Isles, and the myth of organized resistances in Wales and Ireland. In the end, Davies leaves us with a profoundly different understanding of Anglo-Norman expansion in the British Isles. In addition to being illuminating, Domination and Conquest is wonderfully written and a joy to read.

I should start with a disclaimer - Rees Davies was my doctoral supervisor at Oxford. That said, this is a short, well-written exposition of the trend in recent British medieval historiography, advanced by Davies and Robin Frame, in which the boundaries of "national" history are broken down. Davies examines the ideological underpinnings, going back to the Anglo-Saxons, for the overlordship of the British Isles and Ireland by the kings of England. He then proceeds to examine Anglo-Norman expansion and infiltration in Wales, Ireland and Scotland in all its myriad aspects. Military conquest was only one tool available, and was accompanied by economic exploitation (and blandishments), the imposition or denial of English law, and English domination of the ecclesiastical hierarchy in Wales and Ireland. With an eye for the telling anecdote, Davies shows how the Anglo-Normans were flexible, adapting from local societies what suited their purposes and exploiting political divisions and rivalries for their own ends. Davies is a good writer as well as one of the most prominent medieval historians in the U.K., and this book should prove accessible for the lay reader interested in what the author has called the "first English empire".

I read this book after delving into "home yoga" for about 3 months. As is probably common, I was doing many of the poses only semi-correctly. There is a lot of reading to be done here, but there is incredible detail to help anyone elicit the poses correctly. Dworkis also divides each pose for beginner, moderate, and advanced. After a particularly tough day of running and 5 sets of tennis, I followed the poses and felt refreshed, relaxed, and loose afterwards. The workout is also really only 20 minutes (after learning the poses) and fun to complete as well as challenging when striving for a more advanced level.

As an exercise physiologist and certified group fitness instructor/personal trainer I highly recommend this book. I have been hesitant to try yoga because of the contraindicated moves (called poses), however this book makes the necessary modifications so that the program is safe, yet still effective and fun. I have looked at many yoga books, and even more videos and classes and this is my favorite. I actually recorded (audio) myself reading some of the descriptions of the poses so that I could do the entire sequence with someone to "cue" me with the appropriate instructions!

With alll the bad rap that Islam has gotten lately, it's nice to have this informative, balanced and interesting book to share with students. I learned a lot and it is a valuable book for most classrooms.

This is a brief, but contains a variety of information. Contents of the book simply speak about these details:
Early Arabia 6
The Prophet Muhammad 8
The Qur'an 10
The Five Pillars of Islam 12
The mosque 18
The caliphate 20
First conquests 22
Scholars and teachers 24
The spread of learning 28
Nomadic or settled 32
Islamic culture 34
The Islamic city 36
Merchants and travelers 38
The crusades 42
Arms and armor 44
Spain 46
Africa 48
Mongols and Turks 50
Central Asia, Iran, and India 52
China and Southeast Asia 54
Costume and jewelry 56
Islamic society 58
Festivals and ceremonies 60
Index and acknowledgments 64

Useful for the young to educate themselves.

Received the book in a timely fashion in the condition described. Great working with the seller.

We are really enjoying the layout of this book and the pictures that go along with it.

I read this and wrote a paper about it for a Humanities course. A good book to compare it to is Rodney Starks' _For the Glory of God_, which takes Grant's ideas about science a bit too far.

Grant provides an all encompassing theory on how science emerged. I don't think the topic could be explained any better without some new archeological find or manipulation of the facts.

The most interesting parts in my opinion involve the comparision of Western European culture to that of China, Byzantium, and the Islamic Middle East. Why didn't they develop science first? Find out why inside.

For laymen and people without a doctorate in history who want to read this for enjoyment (or for curricular activities), reading the first two and the last chapters will give you a good approximation of Grant's thesis. Only do this if you have a good general knowledge of history from 600 BC to 1700 AD.

A very profound, solid and informative book! Grant, one of the best connoisseurs of medieval science, takes a long overdue step against the conservative mainstream in the field of the history of science; i.e. he corrects the absurd fairy tale of the invention of modern science through "great heroes" like Galileo, Descartes, Newton etc. by showing the great merits of medieval thinkers: The roots of modern science were planted in the medieval world long before the alleged "Scientific Revolution" of the seventeenth century.

This fundamental insight was recently confirmed through the book of Ulrich Taschow: "Nicole Oresme und der Frühling der Moderne", ISBN 3-936979-00-6, see Amazon german ("Nicole Oresme and the spring of modern age"). Taschow supplements his very interesting examinations of history of science through a psycho-historical approach including a new theory of evolutionary consciousness. In medieval thought the basic elements of Modern Age were anticipated by means of "self-fulfilling prophecies" - for Taschow a psycho-historical principle of consciousness. Grants emphasis of the medieval "thought experiment" as essential step into modern science Taschow similarly uses as one of the essential functions of the modern consciousness, etc. In different languages both authors speak of the same things.

So I think it is no chance that two totally different ways and methods, Grants and Taschows, led to the same results! In this respect it would be very interesting to know Grants "beliefs" in the structure of historical processes. Obviously he is no follower of the conservative theory of linear, cumulative progress... (or?)

For people which are interested in deeper questions and answers concerning the origins of Modern Science and Modern Western Culture beyond the commonplaces of classical history I strongly recommend both books, Grants and Taschows.
G. Balther, Cologne

I read this aloud to my children (age 7 and 9), and all three of us really enjoyed the stories! Very entertaining, and fun because they used modern expressions, and included amusing details. Also, there were lots of twists and turns that weren't in Disney movies or other versions of these stories, that made the stories extra interesting. I also really appreciated the fact that the story tried to clarify some moral points, in a nice way. My kids just begged and begged for me to keep reading just one more chapter. I would really recommend it.

Give Stephen Mitchell a looksee. Stare long and hard at him for a while. Really take him in. Why? Because, my friend, you are in the presence of a very smart man. A man who realized something that a lot of authors need to take into account. When it comes to classic tales like One Thousand and One Arabian Nights there are very few child-friendly versions of the tales that have been published in the last ten years. That doesn't stop my library patrons from asking for some, though. I'll hand them a thick text circa 1973 with copious words and few pictures and they'll give me that hurt puppydog look. The look that says, "Why won't you give me what I want?" And what they want (though they don't know the title yet) is "Genies, Meanies, and Magic Rings". A new look at three of the classic Arabian Tales, Mitchell has given new light to the well-known and even reintroduced stories that we might not have heard in their original incarnation before. A necessary purchase and then some.

Three stories culled from "The Arabian Nights" appear in this volume, varying in fame. There is "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" (which has amazingly eluded Disneyfication until now) about a poor man named Ali Baba and his discovery of a cache of thieves gold. "Abu Keer and Abu Seer" looks at the story of two men, one good and one bad, and the various trials one must suffer at the hands of the other. Finally, "Aladdin and the Magic Lamp" rounds out the book and maintains its status as one of the world's finer stories for children.

Look. Anyone who flips through the first ten pages of the original "Arabian Nights" will tell you right off the bat that it is NOT a work of fiction appropriate for children. There's some serious sex-related stuff in those stories, to say nothing of the awe-inspiring tortures and dismemberments that abound. That means that it was up to Mr. Mitchell to make the stories accessible to kids today. This is no easy task. Sometimes updating a classic tale or story goes all wrong. Consider, for example, Julius Lester's well-meaning but flawed retelling of the classic Brer Rabbit in, Uncle Remus: The Complete Tales. For the most part, Lester did a supremely wonderful job. But then he'd try to "update" the tales and throw in a reference to a shopping mall, or some similarly jarring image, and throw the whole story out of whack. I was a little worried that Mitchell here might go the same route. I needn't have worried.

As he says in his Afterword, "I have kept the main story lines, but I have abridged, deleted, and expanded incidents, added and deleted dialogue, modified motivation and character, and made whatever other changes seemed appropriate in order to bring these tales to life in the English of today." Sometimes it's a physical change to the original story, and sometimes an emotional one. When Aladdin sees the beautiful princess for the first time we hear that, "Even though he had just seen her for the first time, it was as if he knew her better than anyone he had ever met - as if she were his best friend and they had known each other a long, long time ago and he had just recognized her again after all that time." Aww. Love at first sight rarely gets described as sweetly. And rarely do princesses get much of a hand in their own rescue, but Mitchell knows enough to give the princess the gumption to help Aladdin figure out how to get his lamp back.

It doesn't hurt matters any that Mitchell is in possession of a bit of a silver tongue. In the tale of "Abu Keer and Abu Seer", for example, he has characters discussing various shades of cloth. "I can dye it the color of a rose or a cherry, a ruby or a sunset or a hummingbird's throat." Mitchell's a fan of lists. There's a section of the story where we are told of the variety and scope of the food the genie brings to Aladdin and his mother. Reading it to myself just now actually cause my stomach to growl. I should mention that though the stories have been updated and made viable to today's youth, there's still some old-fashioned let's-scald-the-evil-doers-alive-in-urns types violence here and there. Not that it's graphic or hurts the story any, but FYI.

Some of the stories might cause surprise. Some kids would be amazed to find Aladdin and his Magic Lamp is a tale set in China, but it makes sense. In his Afterword, Mitchell discusses his sources and where he found one tale or another. "The tales originated from the Indian, Persian, Arab, and Chinese merchants who traveled on the Silk road between northern China and the Middle East." The Afterword also puts to rest any fears one might have about Mitchell's research and intentions. Here you will find explanations of the earliest printed editions of the tales, not to mention the first European translations, their importance, and even little matters like how we know that "Abu Keer and Abu Seer" is a relatively recent creation (tobacco is in the story but didn't hit the Near East until the 17th century). Hats are tipped too to the translations of the tale done by Edward Lane, Sir Richard Francis Burton, and Husain Haddawy (as recently as 1995!).

Illustrators often end up with the short end of the stick when it comes to critiquing the books they work upon. Because I had read (and greatly enjoyed) the Stephen Mitchell book of poetry for children, The Wishing Bone, and Other Poems, I had seen Mr. Tom Pohrt's work before. His images aren't flashy or pompous. They're small subtle complements to the action. Maybe two figures will relax in one image and in another a woman will scold. It would be easy enough to slip into Arab stereotyping in this kind of book, but Pohrt has the matter well in hand, and every character is a unique individual. If Mitchell makes the book worth reading then Pohrt makes it worth viewing.

The matter of race takes a funny turn in these books. I don't know how necessary it would have been to mention that the villain in Aladdin was, "a tall dark-skinned man with a long nose." I might also be interested in looking up the original text to see if this description was always the case (turban and all). Also, the genie is described as a white dude (my words, not his) with golden hair and a beard, as featured on the cover of this book. An interesting choice and one that I suspect might lead to a very interesting discussion of textual analysis and race in children's interpretations of past fairy tales and fables.

On the whole, however, I can't imagine any reasonable arguments against buying this title immediately if not sooner. You already own an edition of these tales? Uh huh. And do the kids dig it? Anyone looking for a text to combat Disney's version of "Aladdin" would do well to grab this book for their shelves pronto. Well-researched, well-written, well on its way to making a name for Mitchell and Pohrt.