Ebook: The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 1: c. 500-c. 700

Surely few books are as daunting to the would-be reader as the Cambridge histories (and there are plenty of them, including Medieval, Ancient, Chinese, History of Christianity, of Judaism, etc.) The sheer size of the works is scary ... at first.

The intrepid reader, however, soon discovers that these huge studies are actually easier to absorb than it might seem at first glance. The main reason is that they are structured as a sequence of short essays (15-35 pages each) on individual topics or geographical regions of the period being surveyed. Each essay is written by a different author (though a few appear more than once) and it is perfectly feasible to read just one chapter a day and develop a good understanding of the topic being discussed. The whole Medieval History can thus be read over a couple of years at a very leisurely pace.

The style is inevitably academic, and the work is hardly a thriller. Still, the wording is usually elegant, the prose is smooth, and the books flows agreeably enough. In my view, the only chapters that are somewhat indigestible are those dealing with the very earliest periods of each region, because the discussions inevitably revolve around archaeological remains and there is hardly any narrative at all. This is a shame, because those are exactly the chapters that readers first stumble across (if they read the works in chronological order), so I would discourage such an approach, at least for the Ancient History. In the Medieval History, however, there is no such problem. Even in volume 1 the reader is thrown straight into the action, at the point where the Romans are slowly being replaced in Europe by Goths, Franks, Saxons, etc. The story is engrossing (if you like the middle ages).

In terms of content, the work is truly authoritative. Every contributor is an expert in their field, and most (if not all) refrain from presenting controversial theses (after all, they know their words will be exposed to criticism by all the best historians in the world). Instead, they are careful to say what is known for certain, what is speculative, and what remains to be determined. In short, the Cambridge Histories can be trusted as a standard reference for any period and geography they cover. Even in the space of so many pages, they hardly cover all there is to tell, but they do a fine job of listing plenty of secondary works and references.

A particularly pleasant aspect (in my view) of the way most periods are discussed in the Histories, is that the authors don't just describe the events that are believed to have taken place, but also discuss the implications and context of such events. They also mention the recent changes in view that new findings have elicited (when applicable) and talk about our understanding of the period in general and what debates have taken or are taking place surrounding the civilizations being surveyed. In other words, the Cambridge Histories are not just a good source for facts or broadly held beliefs, but also an excellent place to learn why historians know what they know, why they believe what they believe (or don't), and why the study of history is a living, changing discipline, rather than the fossilized pile of chronologies that many people still consider it to be.