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God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science
James Hannam · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Hide books by the same authorThe House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance
Jim Al-Khalili · 336 pages
Color: A Natural History of the Palette
Victoria Finlay · 448 pages
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Jared Diamond · 592 pages
"In his Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond examined how and why Western civilizations developed the technologies and immunities that allowed them to dominate much of the world. Now, Diamond probes the other side of the equation: What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates?" "As in Guns, G
Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages
Frances Gies, Joseph Gies · 357 pages
"In this account of Europe's rise to world leadership in technology, Frances and Joseph Gies make use of recent scholarship to destroy two time-honored myths. Myth One: that Europe's leap forward occurred suddenly in the "Renaissance," following centuries of medieval stagnation. Not so, say the Gieses: Early modern technology and experimental science were direct outgrowths of the decisive innovati
God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades
Rodney Stark
Joan of Arc: A History
Helen Castor · 352 pages
The acclaimed historian Helen Castor -- bestselling author and BBC broadcaster of She-Wolves, the story of England's queens before Elizabeth I -- returns with the incredible story of Joan of Arc, as only a biographer of Castor's enormous talents can tell it. Helen Castor brings us afresh a gripping life of Joan of Arc. Instead of the icon, she gives us a living, breathing young woman, a roaring gi
Dungeon, Fire And Sword: The Knights Templar In The Crusades
John J. Robinson · 494 pages
History of the Knights Templar, the Christian warrior monks who occuped the scared Temple Mount in Jerusalem after the First Crusade.
Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom
Tom Holland · 476 pages
**Bestselling historian and broadcaster Tom Holland gives a thrilling panoramic account of the birth of the new Western Europe in the year 1000** **'An exhilarating sweep across European history either side of the year 1000; riveting'** ALLAN MASSIE, *SPECTATOR* **'I relished the blood and thunder narrative - the work of a great storyteller at his best'** DOMINIC SANDBROOK, *EVENING STANDARD* *
How the Irish Saved Civilization
Thomas Cahill · 246 pages
From the fall of Rome to the rise of Charlemagne - the "dark ages" - learning, scholarship, and culture disappeared from the European continent. The great heritage of western civilization - from the Greek and Roman classics to Jewish and Christian works - would have been utterly lost were it not for the holy men and women of unconquered Ireland. In this delightful and illuminating look into a cru
The Templars: History & Myth
Michael Haag · 368 pages
Magic in the Middle Ages
Richard Kieckhefer · 219 pages
"This book will approach magic as a kind of crossroads where different pathways in medieval culture converge. First of all it is a point of intersection between religion and science. Demonic magic invokes evil spirits and rests upon a network of religious beliefs and practices, while natural magic exploits "occult" powers within nature and is essentially a branch of medieval science. Yet demonic a
Thomas Becket: Warrior, Priest, Rebel
John Guy · 462 pages
A History of the Crusades, Vol. II: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East, 1100-1187
Steven Runciman · 538 pages
Medieval History: The Life and Death of a Civilization
Norman F. Cantor · 584 pages
Studies on the ideas and institutions of Western civilization from 200 A.D. to 1500 A.D.
God's War: A New History of the Crusades
Christopher Tyerman · 1,023 pages
The story of how a group of warriors, driven by faith, greed and wanderlust, carved out new Christian-ruled states in the Middle East is one of the most extraordinary of all epics. The crusaders' stunning initial success started a sequence of great Crusades, each with its own story, that fundamentally shaped the Christian and Muslim worlds for two centuries, until the last Crusader castles were fi
The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages
Norman Cohn · 414 pages
The end of the millennium has always held the world in fear of earthquakes, plague, and the catastrophic destruction of the world. At the dawn of the 21st millennium the world is still experiencing these anxieties, as seen by the onslaught of fantasies of renewal, doomsday predictions, and New Age prophecies. This fascinating book explores the millenarianism that flourished in western Europe betwe
Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade
James Reston Jr. · 312 pages
The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain
Maria Rosa Menocal · 315 pages
A brilliant and fascinating portrait of medieval Spain explores the golden age when Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together in an atmosphere of tolerance. of photos. 3 maps.
The New Concise History of the Crusades
Thomas F. Madden · 259 pages
"How have the crusades contributed to Islamist rage and terrorism today? Were the crusades the Christian equivalent of modern jihad? In this sweeping yet crisp history, Thomas Madden offers a narrative of the crusades and their contemporary relevance." "Placing all the major crusades within their medieval social, economic, religious, and intellectual environments, Madden explores the uniquely medi
A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an Age
William Manchester · 318 pages
William Manchester's A World Lit Only by Fire is the preeminent popular history of civilization's rebirth after the Dark Ages.
The Invention of Air
Steven Johnson · 254 pages
Bestselling author Steven Johnson recounts—in dazzling, multidisciplinary fashion—the story of the brilliant man who embodied the relationship between science, religion, and politics for America’s Founding Fathers. The Invention of Air is a book of world-changing ideas wrapped around a compelling narrative, a story of genius and violence and friendship in the midst of sweeping historical change th
Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie · 383 pages
"Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie has had a success which few historians experience and which is usually reserved for the winner of the Prix Goncourt...Montaillou, which is the reconstruction of the social life of a medieval village, has been acclaimed by the experts as a masterpiece of ethnographic history and by the public as a sensational revelation of the thoughts, feelings, and activities of the ordin
The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam
Bernard Lewis · 176 pages