Maynard Handley's Reviews > Inventing the Middle Ages

Looking at the the other comments most readers seem to see the book in terms on one of two framings: either it says the "wrong" things about the Middle Ages; or it's academic gossip.
If you see the world in either of those two framings, I guess you two won't like it.

Here's what I saw when I read it:

- In terms of the Middle Ages, essentially every chapter gives a different point of view on the period. We hear something of law in the Middle Ages, then German Politics, then Art, then Literature, then Religion, then... In a sense that is obvious, except that in each of those chapters Cantor explains why the subject(s) of the chapter told us something about that aspect of the subject that was not at all obvious, that may be received wisdom now, but was not part of the worldview of academic history before 1900 or so.

- Secondly, Cantor wants us to realize that history is written by human beings. We learned these things about the Middle Ages because specific individuals with specific idiosyncrasies engaged in the hard work of research, then thought, then writing, to explain them to us. This knowledge did not derive from revelation, nor was it handed down from generation to generation, neither was it manufactured by state machinery or immense collectives; it was the product of one individual human at a time.

- Thirdly, each of those humans was different from the others. It's pretty much par for our times that the people who seem to hate this book most because it lacks "diversity" apparently never read it! Diversity is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. Color, gender, sexuality; those are what define diversity -- but god forbid we put any sort of importance on the diversity of the character or personalities of individuals. After all, it was Hitler, wasn't it, who said "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
What stood out to ME from this cavalcade of characters is that anyone can be a Medieval historian if they're willing to put in the work. Aristocrat or peasant, born in Europe or outside it, gregarious or anti-social, child prodigy or late bloomer; all can do great work.

- Finally Cantor wants to make the point that how ideas play out is substantially dependent on contingent factors. The politics surrounding an author (maybe from choices made by that author, maybe pure randomness) may make it convenient for others to laud the work, or to avoid it. Charisma can give some authors a much louder megaphone than others. That's a fact, and pretending otherwise is bad history. And if you're an idiot, that's the end of the story, cue grievance studies.

But suppose you're not an idiot? Well, then, presumably you care more about the history than the petty issues of who gets the groupies and who doesn't. And Cantor's point is that, in the end, the work speaks for itself.
The author may have a happy or sad life, one successful (by some definition of success...) or not, prolific or not; may have many, few or no students, may leave (or barely even join) academia. But in the end we all die, only our works remain. And good works are recognized as good, live on, and provide value long after the lives that wrote the books.
If that fact of the world doesn't appeal to you, then perhaps you're going to be unhappy about ANYTHING to do with the realities of both history "long ago" and academic life in most fields....