A World Lit Only by Fire

An absorbing history of the Middle Ages 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

• “Manchester has succeeded in bringing a lively, thoughtful order to a time when humankind was emerging from a prolonged and profound period of intellectual lethargy. If textbooks were written like this, we would all know more about the past.”
  David Holahan, San Francisco Chronicle
• “Lively and engaging, full of exquisite details and anecdotes that transform this period — usually murky — into a comprehensive tableau.”
  Dallas Morning News
• "A captivating, marvelously vivid popular history that humanizes the tumultuous span from the Dark Ages to the dawn of the Renaissance."
  Publishers Weekly