Superb collection of essays on Medieval Europe, originally given I believe as a series of lectures, and looking at the Middle Ages through lenses historical, sociological, and theological. Dawson is an expert narrator and his books are always well written and full of facts you don't find in most histories. ( )

3143. Medieval Essays, by Christopher Dawson (read Jan 3, 1999) This was also a book I picked up for next to nothing at a rummage sale last summer and which I thought I should read since I had paid a good nickel or dime for it. Dawson is a famous English historian, but these essays are erudite and on subjects one can get interested in only if one works at it. I find essays are like short stories--over before one gets caught up in them. I did not get much out of this book, and I cannot say my dime was profitably spent. ( )

(final paragraph only, of a very long set of notes, transcribed here)
Some valuable pearls concealed in a great deal of dross. The author seems quite unable to resist pursuing every interesting side-issue,and the argument is far more difficult to follow than the foregoing summary might suggest. (For an example of exceptionally confused argument, see section on Roger Bacon: 89 ff. And for an example of a verbal smokescreen covering a failure to explain his terms, see p. 81.)