The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change 950 - 1350, by Robert Bartlett, 200
The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change 950 - 1350, by Robert Bartlett, 2003.Such a great book. Covering such an area over four hundred years in just over 300 pages, you might expect that this would be rushed or superficial, but it never feels like that. It takes overarching themes (such as colonisation) and explores how they happened in different areas of Europe, highlighting similarities and differences. It brings together so many themes that it feels really comprehensive.One of the biggest things that struck me reading this was the status of Irish people in Ireland under English rule - compared to other peoples in ‘colonised’ areas they had a far, far worse status. In the earlier parts of the period the status of the Irish was actually worse than that of Muslims under Spanish Christian rule (though the status of Muslims gradually worsened through the period and did end up as poorer than that of the Irish). -- source link
#non-fiction#history#medieval history