Medieval Technology and Social Change (Galaxy Books)

Rating:
Summary: A great work that connects technological and social history
Review: This is one of the classic works of medieval studies to emerge out of the past half century, and its importance far outstrips whether or not White's famous stirrup thesis is correct or not. The overwhelming consensus is that it is incorrect. But only someone who has not read the book could imagine that that thesis was the bulk of the book, or the only idea in it. In fact, there is an unstated, larger thesis that underlies White's book, and which indicates why it is important: White implies that we can only understand the medieval period if we also understand its technology. White virtually ushered in the age of the study of medieval technology and seeing it as intimately connected and underlying the social and even political history.

This is a short book, shorter than it initially seems upon holding it because of the vast number of foot and endnotes. But the number of ideas and insights are completely out of proportion with the book's apparent brevity. It is absolutely stuffed to overflowing with content. Miraculously, that doesn't effect its readability. Even a relative neophyte to historical studies will have little difficulty following White's ideas and arguments, although, obviously, the more one knows, the better the background one will have for understanding his theses.

Although his stirrup thesis has largely been rejected, this remains an essential book on any short list of the great works of medieval history. More than that, it is fun, too. I strongly recommend it to anyone with the slightest degree of interest in medieval history.

Rating:
Summary: A great work that connects technological and social history
Review: This is one of the classic works of medieval studies to emerge out of the past half century, and its importance far outstrips whether or not White's famous stirrup thesis is correct or not. The overwhelming consensus is that it is incorrect. But only someone who has not read the book could imagine that that thesis was the bulk of the book, or the only idea in it. In fact, there is an unstated, larger thesis that underlies White's book, and which indicates why it is important: White implies that we can only understand the medieval period if we also understand its technology. White virtually ushered in the age of the study of medieval technology and seeing it as intimately connected and underlying the social and even political history.

This is a short book, shorter than it initially seems upon holding it because of the vast number of foot and endnotes. But the number of ideas and insights are completely out of proportion with the book's apparent brevity. It is absolutely stuffed to overflowing with content. Miraculously, that doesn't effect its readability. Even a relative neophyte to historical studies will have little difficulty following White's ideas and arguments, although, obviously, the more one knows, the better the background one will have for understanding his theses.

Although his stirrup thesis has largely been rejected, this remains an essential book on any short list of the great works of medieval history. More than that, it is fun, too. I strongly recommend it to anyone with the slightest degree of interest in medieval history.

Rating:
Summary: Old and Out Dated
Review: White's "stirrup" thesis was shown to be incorrect by Bernard Bachrach over 30 years ago. It was an interesting hypothesis at the time, but now has become one of those ideas (such as medieval people thinking the world was flat) that half-educated school teachers tell students and that even gets into the less well-edited textbooks.

In other words, read this book if you are interested in the history of ideas, but not for conclusions any professional medieval specialist would accept.