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  • A World Lit Only by Fire

  • The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance Portrait of an Age
  • By: William Manchester
  • Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
  • Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
  • 3.7 out of 5 stars (123 ratings)
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A World Lit Only by Fire cover art

A World Lit Only by Fire

By: William Manchester
Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
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Summary

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 Renaissance. The latter was a dense explosion of energy that spawned some of history's greatest poets, philosophers, and painters, as well as some of its most spectacular villains.
Knight time: explore our list of titles about the Middle Ages.
©1979, 1980 William Manchester (P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc.
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

Critic reviews

"An absorbing and readable history." ( School Library Journal)
"Manchester provides easy access to a fascinating age when our modern mentality was just being born." ( Chicago Tribune)
"Manchester has not forgotten the skills that, with invective, eloquence, and anecdote, make him a master storyteller."( Kirkus Reviews)

What listeners say about A World Lit Only by Fire

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Gets better

I just finished this. It starts with a catalogue, somewhat one-sided, of why the middle ages were a bad and brutal event in human history. I say somewhat one-sided, because I think Manchester falls into the camp that slightly under-rates the brutality and over-rates the civilising influence of the Romans. Manchester is however very good when he gets out of the mud of context and back onto the more easily navigated paths of narrative biography. His descriptions, in particular, of Luther and of Magellan (effectively the hero of this volume, though you'll have to wait till around two thirds of the way through to get to him) are both interesting and illuminating.

The book is read in something of a monotone - don't expect great theatrical declamations. But it is interesting and a worthwhile listen, and to be honest I'll probably now buy the printed book to read over.

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17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

sounds so bad I can't listen to it

Guys, you can't publish this sounding like google voice. Seriously I'd rather have it read by Siri. I hear the books great but this is not doable as a listen.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Seems to bear little relation to actual history.

Couldn't get into it, I'm not listening for hours to such inaccurate nonsense. Embarrassingly poorly researched.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Terribly read

The story might have been good but I couldn’t get past the computer sounding voice and gave up with it after an hour. Iv got over 80 books in my Audible library and this is just the second book Iv been unable to listen to. Very disappointed.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Unnuanced, out of date.

Track down a current title where the author had used up to date research and doesn't view things only through the lens of the accepted orthodoxy.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Compelling, but horribly out of date.

Come for carichatures rather than facts, his depictions are one dimensional and lack introspection or interrogation; traits he ascribes to the bumbling rustics who frolic from season to miserable season. its a portrait of an imagined past too certain for nuance or much empathy.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Comically awful

This sounds like a high school textbook from the 1960's. Every cliché of medieval misconception is proudly present, none described with as much detail as the sexual exploits of the Borgias. Truly bad.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Monotone monologue

As an ardent fan of history I was disappointed that this audio book is just a load of facts given in a monotonous stream of consciousness. Lists of names given out like a menu. It came free with Audible but it was not worth the money!

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

cherry picking with a pronounced slant

A deceptive synopsis for this book by the renowned historian of JFK. Manchester spends the first section cherry picking salacious examples of medieval debauchery, darting from century to century to create a sinewy stew, using examples to make sweeping generalizations. The most outrageous claims against Lucrezia Borgia and the papacy are accepted as fact without any questioning of the motives of the secondary sources. Ann Boleyn is also notably misjudged during the latter end of the tome.

This portrait of medieval Europe caught with its pants almost permanently down lays the foundation for Manchester's actual topic, an account of Luther and Magellan. Both accounts are interesting, even if both are written from the perspective of a church abiding American who experienced fighting in the Pacific War, drawn to both Christ and General MacArthur as heroes. The epilogue veers of into complete purple prose about his own account of writing about Magellan, a useless end to a tome which wear its bias proudly on its sleeve.

This isn't helped by a woeful turn on the microphone by Whitener, whose lack of a personality and dire pronunciation of English vocabulary made this a chore, akin to HAL 9000 without a personality.

And with that, I'm off to recover from this arduous listen by putting on my papal tiara and getting back to some good old fashioned European debauchery. I'll wait for the January sale to buy my indulgences thank you very much!

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

awful robotic narration

gave up after 2 mins. I will read the book myself. sounded like an auto-narration

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1 person found this helpful