Review of A World Lit Only By Fire
by Maxwell Joslyn. (updated
A World Lit Only By Fire
out of 5
What Does The Score "3.0" Mean?
Solid: Above the bar. Good parts greatly outweigh any shortcomings. I'm glad to have read it once.The title is absolutely killer. Pity it wasn't used on a better book.
A World Lit Only By Fire is about the transition from the medieval world to the Renaissance one, focusing on how the rise of Protestantism shattered the medieval worldview's unchanging conceptions of the world and man's place in it. The book offers a reasonably detailed account of the Reformation, and how its flames were fanned by anticlericalism and budding nationalism, but I don't think the author does a great job even staking out a thesis, let alone defending one. He couldn't seem to make up his mind whether he was explaining history or merely describing it.
You would do far better to read From Dawn to Decadence.