The History of the Medieval World

The second volume of Bauer’s four-part narrative world history, running from Constantine’s conversion to the First Crusade and deliberately refusing to stay in Europe — the chapters cut between Rome, Byzantium, Persia, the Arab conquests, India, China and Japan in roughly chronological order. It is written to be read straight through rather than consulted, which is what makes it usable as the spine of a self-directed history course.

Context: Susan Wise Bauer is an American writer and historian with a doctorate in American studies from William & Mary, and co-author of the classical-education manual The Well-Trained Mind. This volume was published by Norton in 2010.

Connections

• A Library to Build Great Americans — the 468-title curriculum this card came from; listed in the Ages 13-99+ band under History.
• Susan Wise Bauer — the author.
• History — the discipline, and how this book practises it.
• Christianity — the institution at the centre of the account.
• Institutions — the unwritten rules doing the real governing.