From acclaimed historians Frances and Joseph Gies comes the reissue of their classic book on day-to-day life in medieval cities, which was a source for George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series. Evoking every aspect of city life in the Middle Ages, Life in a Medieval City depicts in detail what it was like to live in a prosperous city of Northwest Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The year is 1250 CE and the city is Troyes, capital of the county of Champagne and site of two of the cycle Champagne Fairs—the “Hot Fair” in August and the “Cold Fair” in December. European civilization has emerged from the Dark Ages and is in the midst of a commercial revolution. Merchants and money men from all over Europe gather at Troyes to buy, sell, borrow, and lend, creating a bustling market center typical of the feudal era. As the Gieses take us through the day-to-day life of burghers, we learn the customs and habits of lords and serfs, how financial transactions were conducted, how medieval cities were governed, and what life was really like for a wide range of people. For serious students of the medieval era and anyone wishing to learn more about this fascinating period, Life in a Medieval City remains a timeless work of popular medieval scholarship.

Today, the United States is becoming more like the Middle Ages than ever, as the gap between the rich and poor grows, and the pandemic, economic crisis, and protests reflect this great divide. The superwealthy have become like a new royalty and nobility, while a class of impoverished, landless, and homeless individuals and families continues to expand. The poor are like the peasants of medieval Europe -- a development fueling the seeds of revolution today, much like the medieval peasant revolts. Through meticulous research, author Gini Graham Scott paints a stark portrait of this growing division in society, drawing parallels to the Middle Ages and showing how our present course is ripe for social and political upheaval. But then there is hope, since the Middle Ages were followed by a Renaissance, a time of rapid change and creative development. The chapters cover these topics: Inequality from Middle Ages to Modern Times Who Has the Money? Creating and Expanding the Kingdoms Battling for Control The World of Work The Power and Influence of the Military and Family The Lifestyles of the Superrich and Others: Then and Now The Growing Inequality Between Rich and Poor War, Revolution, Famine, and the Plague The Growing Crisis and What to Do Next What an American Renaissance Might Look Like

From windmills to wheelbarrows, medieval innovators helped develop or improve some important manufacturing technology we use today. The Middle Ages were crucial for the improvement of technologies such as the spinning wheel, loom, printing press, and more! Discover how our stuff is still made like it's the medieval times with interesting historical facts, scientific details, and illuminating photos.

Rich collisions and fresh perspectives illuminate the profound continuities of thought and practice that have marked Western art through the ages This groundbreaking study offers a radical new reading of art since the Middle Ages. Moving across the familiar period lines set out in conventional histories, Alexander Nagel explores the deep connections between modern and premodern art to reveal the underlying patterns and ideas traversing centuries of artistic practice. In a series of episodic chapters, he reconsiders from an innovative double perspective a number of key issues in the history of art, from iconoclasm and idolatry to installation and the museum as institution. He shows how the central tenets of modernism – serial production, site-specificity, collage, the readymade, and the questioning of the nature of art and authorship – were all features of earlier times before modernity, revived by recent generations. Nagel examines, among other things, the importance of medieval cathedrals to the 1920s Bauhaus movement, the parallels between Renaissance altarpieces and modern preoccupations with surface and structure; the relevance of Byzantine models to Minimalist artists; the affinities between ancient holy sites and early earthworks; and the similarities between the sacred relic and the modern readymade. Alongside the work of leading 20th-century medievalist writes such as Walter Benjamin, Marshall McLuhan, Leo Steinberg, and Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, Robert Smithson, and Damien Hirst. The effect of these encounters goes in two directions at once: each age offers new insights into the other, deepening our understanding of both past and present, and providing a new set of reference points that reframe the history of art itself.

A physicist and historian sheds light on scientific minds, breakthroughs, and innovations that paved the way for the Scientific Revolution. Histories of modern science often begin with the heroic battle between Galileo and the Catholic Church, a conflict which ignited the Scientific Revolution and led to the world-changing discoveries of Isaac Newton. As a consequence of this narrative frame, virtually nothing is said about the European scholars who came before. In reality, more than a millennium before the Renaissance, a succession of scholars paved the way for the exciting discoveries usually credited to Galileo, Newton, Copernicus, and others. In Before Galileo, John Freely examines the pioneering research of the first European scientists, many of them monks whose influence ranged far beyond the walls of the monasteries where they studied and wrote.

Paints a panorama of Jerusalem in all her glory, from medieval times and the era of the Crusaders, through the poverty-stricken Jewish communities of the last centuries and their strength and heroism, ending with a look at Jerusalem today. Carefully researched, with stories, biographies, an index, charts, and photographs.