Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages

Get this book and read it; you’ll thank me. I’ve read other Dan Jones’ books and enjoyed them greatly. When Powers & Thrones arrived, I was a bit intimidated by the size of the book, but I opened and dived in and was hooked very quickly. I was thoroughly entertained and learned a great deal, and I actually feel quite intellectually superior now to the people I’m surrounded by who haven’t read the book. I bought another copy to give as a Christmas gift, which I feel is my duty in doing my part to spread the sheer joy this book can bring to ones life!

Maya Angelou said: “You can't really know where you are going until you know where you have been.” For the first time, an author has finally undone all the damage what my 11th grade history teacher did to make me despise history. Dan Jones piqued my interest in history quite a few years ago ( self-named his "Early Ink" days) and helped me to embrace my relationship to those who came before, both related and unrelated. He narrated, in the audio version, illuminating his passion for his calling, which this hardcopy helps me to reread and revisit at will, as the need arises. Whether you have an interest in the Byzantines, or Arabs, or Norse, or Franks, Jones connects the dots of history to help with the "whys and hows" that you did not even realize you did not know. Read it and learn to "know where you have been".

The book was well written and the author did a great job unraveling the complexity of the Middle Ages. The problem though is he invited today’s wokeism into the era of the Middle Ages. He continually brings up climate change, immigration and slavery and judges the romans on today’s standards which is never a good idea. History should teach us for the future but the author sets his own agenda when he compares the ways of the early third and fourth centuries with today. Slavery was part of the world with every culture , empire and kingdom of these times and should not be condemned by today’s standards.....if you can read through his agenda , it is a good book and he is a talented writer.

This is a huge undertaking. Because of that it does skate over large periods. That can be liberally excused but what spoils it most is the extended use of modern idiom. Internet and street slang changes what is a mostly interesting history into what sounds like a teacher trying to buddy up to his pupils.

I agree with some of the other reviews that he may have taken on a little too much with this overview of the 'entire' middle ages. It really is too large an age to be captured in one book. I also didn't enjoy all his modern use of language and the comparing of current political climates... sometimes they fit, but they often don't. I found myself skipping pages to figure out when the current chapter was going to end. Never a good thing for any book. I greatly enjoyed his War of the Roses books, so I am a little disappointed.

With the death of Sir Julian Norwich, the reading public lost an absolute master of narrative history. In their need to ‘publish or perish’ many scholars are often driven to concentrate on one subject in great depth — necessary but sometimes stultifying (not a criticism but a fact nevertheless). Then there are scholars who dare to write history that is wide-ranging, well-researched and, ultimately, vastly entertaining and appropriate for all intelligent readers. Luckily for us, there are a number heirs to Sir Julian’s genius: Orlando Figes, Mary Beard, Simon Sebag Montefiore — and Dan Jones.Powers and Thrones is a gem. Starting with the vacuum left during and after the dissolution of the Roman imperium in the West; through the establishment of the Byzantine Empire; the rise of Islam; the Mongol rampage; the ‘triumph’ of Western Christianity and everything that flowed from it; and all the way to the seismic effect of Martin Luther — the myriad historical personalities, causes, disasters of all kinds, and countless vignettes are all presented with sobriety, scepticism and humor by Jones’s deft writing and judgment.If the you have read Jones’s The Templars and enjoyed it as much as I have, you will not be deterred by the length of his narrative — every page has some fascinating (and sometimes corrective) insight. For myself, I look forward to his next history.

In the last several years, I've read many books covering the Middle Ages, including Dan Jones books--which I always find interesting. The best part of this book for me is how he arranged it. The other books I've read have all been chronological; this one is thematic.While I've read much of the information in various forms before, the thematic organization of this book really helped me gain a better understanding of the importance/influence of each group as a whole, rather than as just a part of a chronological history.

Dan proves himself over and over as not only an expert on the Middle Ages, but also an expert and entertaining story teller.

As someone who has read many assorted history books from an even wider variety of authors, the content of this book is excellent. The author doesn't linger on any particular topic but still includes enough detail as he navigates through the middle ages. However, as I have found with most books written by Dan Jones, it is very poorly written. Regular grammatical mistakes are found on almost every page (lack of or incorrect use of commas, and beginning sentences with 'And' which even primary school children are taught not to do), sentences that are way to short and staccato, or even to the extent of being so long that no paragraphs are used at all. I'm not sure if this is his fault or his editor, but either way I can't abide by this. As such, I can't read this book in lengthy sittings, so will likely take me a month or more to plow my way through.

Fantastic book covering many different cultures and viewpoints. Gives a much greater understanding of the whole situationEasy to read

Tough to really sink your teeth into because the narrative is VAST and geographically all over the place. Now, I did know what to expect but as a personal preference I prefer compact narrative storytelling such as one of Dan Jones’ previous books The Templars.I got into certain chapters but I knew that sooner or later another would begin on an entirely different subject. I just couldn’t get invested. Basically this book lacks a narrative through-line and that’s a major aspect I didn’t like.Yes the prose is lively and engaging and easy to read, but the stop-start nature and focus of the different chapters really threw me off.

Jones is on form in this magnificent panorama covering the fall of the Roman empire to the Renaissance and Reformation. As the title suggests it's mainly traditional chronological history of monarchs and wars, written with the non-specialist reader very much in mind. Inevitably, it doesn't always feel as satisfying in places as some more focused histories, but given the scope it's probably as good as you could get. I marked it down from five stars because I can't remember the last time I saw so many proofing errors - does the publisher not employ editors or proof readers, or is this down to the author? It's slovenly, distracting and a bit of an insult.

This book, which covers around 1000 years of European and Middle Eastern history in 639 gripping pages is history writing at its finest and most enjoyable. So often we read history in bits and pieces, in chunks of time, and with very limited geographies. Not so here. although the focus is somewhat geographically limited; it would be of unmanageable size otherwise.This book flows along and helps to join up and synthesise knowledge - so we can easily see what happened, why it happened and what it led to. Starting with the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and concluding with the Renaissance and then the Reformation that can be considered to have drawn medieval times and society to a close, this covers a wide span of time and events.The book covers the rise and fall of Byzantium, the rise of of the religions of Christianity and Islam, and some of the flash points between them and within them. We have crusaders, popes, kings, princes, queens and princess, peasant rebellions, the world explorations of the 15th century, the flowering of art and culture in Italy and the Low Countries, and so much more.Although a huge book I found the pages flying by, and I was engrossed and fascinated throughout. The book is beautifully illustrated with three sections of plates, and is frankly superbly written. I was a little sad to have finished the book, though certainly better informed and entertained.One of the best works of history I have ever read - and I have read many