Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
"A lively history . . . [Jones] has managed to touch every major topic. As each piece of the puzzle is placed into position, the modern world gradually comes into view . . . Powers and Thrones provides the reader with a framework for understanding a complicated subject, and it tells the story of an essential era of world history with skill and style."—The New York Times
The New York Times bestselling author returns with an epic history of the medieval world—a rich and complicated reappraisal of an era whose legacy and lessons we are still living with today.
When the once-mighty city of Rome was sacked by barbarians in 410 and lay in ruins, it signaled the end of an era—and the beginning of a thousand years of profound transformation. In a gripping narrative bursting with big names—from St Augustine and Attila the Hun to the Prophet Muhammad and Eleanor of Aquitaine—Dan Jones charges through the history of the Middle Ages. Powers and Thrones takes readers on a journey through an emerging Europe, the great capitals of late Antiquity, as well as the influential cities of the Islamic West, and culminates in the first European voyages to the Americas.
The medieval world was forged by the big forces that still occupy us today: climate change, pandemic disease, mass migration, and technological revolutions. This was the time when the great European nationalities were formed; when the basic Western systems of law and governance were codified; when the Christian Churches matured as both powerful institutions and the regulators of Western public morality; and when art, architecture, philosophical inquiry and scientific invention went through periods of massive, revolutionary change.
The West was rebuilt on the ruins of an empire and emerged from a state of crisis and collapse to dominate the world. Every sphere of human life and activity was transformed in the thousand years covered by Powers and Thrones. As we face a critical turning point in our own millennium, Dan Jones shows that how we got here matters more than ever.
If you are having problem transferring a title to your device, please fill out this support form or visit the library so we can help you to use our eBooks and eAudio Books.
Dan Jones. (2021). Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages. Penguin Publishing Group.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Dan Jones. 2021. Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages. Penguin Publishing Group.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Dan Jones, Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages. Penguin Publishing Group, 2021.
MLA Citation (style guide)Dan Jones. Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages. Penguin Publishing Group, 2021.
| Library | Owned | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Digital Collection | 1 | 0 |
There are 5 holds on this title.
OverDrive Product Record
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/1523-1/{52BD6AE4-A8D7-402F-9DC1-11EE60E883D0}IMG100.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/1523-1/{52BD6AE4-A8D7-402F-9DC1-11EE60E883D0}IMG200.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/1523-1/{52BD6AE4-A8D7-402F-9DC1-11EE60E883D0}IMG150.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/1523-1/{52BD6AE4-A8D7-402F-9DC1-11EE60E883D0}IMG400.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- formats
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781984880888
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B08Y6L23TR
- name: Kindle Book
- id: ebook-kindle
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781984880888
- name: OverDrive Read
- id: ebook-overdrive
- identifiers:
- mediaType
- eBook
- primaryCreator
- role: Author
- name: Dan Jones
- title
- Powers and Thrones
- dateAdded
- 2021-11-05T20:39:00Z
- contentDetails
- href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=6116705
- type: text/html
- account:
- name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
- id: 1151
- sortTitle
- Powers and Thrones A New History of the Middle Ages
- crossRefId
- 6116705
- subtitle
- A New History of the Middle Ages
- id
- 52BD6AE4-A8D7-402F-9DC1-11EE60E883D0
- starRating
- 4.1
OverDrive MetaData
- isPublicDomain
- False
- formats
- fileName: PowersandThrones_9781984880888_6116705
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 63562819
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781984880888
- rights:
- type: Copying
- value: 0
- type: Printing
- value: 0
- type: Lending
- value: 0
- type: ReadAloud
- value: 0
- type: ExpirationRights
- value: 0
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- onSaleDate: 11/9/2021
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=52bd6ae4-a8d7-402f-9dc1-11ee60e883d0&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: PowersandThrones_6116705
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B08Y6L23TR
- name: Kindle Book
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-kindle
- onSaleDate: 11/9/2021
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=52bd6ae4-a8d7-402f-9dc1-11ee60e883d0&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: PowersandThrones_9781984880888_6116705
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781984880888
- name: OverDrive Read
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-overdrive
- onSaleDate: 11/9/2021
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=52bd6ae4-a8d7-402f-9dc1-11ee60e883d0&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- keywords
- value: Middle Ages
- value: Ancient History
- value: European History
- value: crusades
- value: power
- value: medieval
- value: History
- value: non fiction books
- value: gifts for dad
- value: history books
- value: gifts for history lovers
- value: History book
- value: history books for adults
- value: fathers day gifts
- value: historical fiction best sellers
- value: history books best sellers
- value: dad gifts
- value: history ebooks
- value: european history books
- value: history gifts
- value: historical nonfiction best sellers
- value: non fiction books best sellers
- value: history buff gifts
- value: nonfiction books best sellers
- value: war books for men
- value: dan jones books
- value: european history ebooks
- creators
- role: Author
- fileAs: Jones, Dan
- name: Dan Jones
- imprint
- Penguin Books
- publishDate
- 2021-11-09T00:00:00-05:00
- isOwnedByCollections
- True
- title
- Powers and Thrones
- fullDescription
- "Not only an engrossing read about the distant past, both informative and entertaining, but also a profoundly thought-provoking view of our not-really-so-‘new’ present . . . All medieval history is here, beautifully narrated . . . The vision takes in whole imperial landscapes but also makes room for intimate portraits of key individuals, and even some poems."—Wall Street Journal
"A lively history . . . [Jones] has managed to touch every major topic. As each piece of the puzzle is placed into position, the modern world gradually comes into view . . . Powers and Thrones provides the reader with a framework for understanding a complicated subject, and it tells the story of an essential era of world history with skill and style."—The New York Times
The New York Times bestselling author returns with an epic history of the medieval world—a rich and complicated reappraisal of an era whose legacy and lessons we are still living with today.
When the once-mighty city of Rome was sacked by barbarians in 410 and lay in ruins, it signaled the end of an era—and the beginning of a thousand years of profound transformation. In a gripping narrative bursting with big names—from St Augustine and Attila the Hun to the Prophet Muhammad and Eleanor of Aquitaine—Dan Jones charges through the history of the Middle Ages. Powers and Thrones takes readers on a journey through an emerging Europe, the great capitals of late Antiquity, as well as the influential cities of the Islamic West, and culminates in the first European voyages to the Americas.
The medieval world was forged by the big forces that still occupy us today: climate change, pandemic disease, mass migration, and technological revolutions. This was the time when the great European nationalities were formed; when the basic Western systems of law and governance were codified; when the Christian Churches matured as both powerful institutions and the regulators of Western public morality; and when art, architecture, philosophical inquiry and scientific invention went through periods of massive, revolutionary change.
The West was rebuilt on the ruins of an empire and emerged from a state of crisis and collapse to dominate the world. Every sphere of human life and activity was transformed in the thousand years covered by Powers and Thrones. As we face a critical turning point in our own millennium, Dan Jones shows that how we got here matters more than ever. - reviews
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
May 1, 2021
Author of the New York Times best-selling The Plantagenets and The Wars of the Roses, plus the popular presenter of television's four-part Britain's Bloodiest Dynasty (those Plantagenets again), Jones offers a thoroughgoing reappraisal of the 1,000-plus years that unfolded from the 410 sack of Rome to the early 1500s to offer a new history of the European Middle Ages. Along the way, readers meet everyone from Attila the Hun to Eleanor of Aquitaine while visiting the great cities of antiquity and the Islamic West. Climate change, pandemic, mass migration, and technological revolutions: all shaped this time and place as they shape the world today.
Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
Starred review from August 30, 2021
Historian Jones (Crusaders) covers 1,000 years of world history in this entertaining chronicle of the period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Protestant Reformation. Delving into the power struggles and "great forces beyond human control," including climate change and the Black Plague, that helped shape the era, Jones charts the evolution of cultural, military, and religious practices with intriguing case studies and vivid character sketches. A section on the rise of European universities notes that Thomas Aquinas"s brothers sought to dissuade him from studying to become a Dominican friar by "Chiring prostitutes to try to tempt him into sin," and that scholars from the University of Paris played a critical role in the downfall of the Knights Templar in the early 14th century. Though the focus is on Europe, Jones makes clear that the Arabic-speaking world exerted a significant influence on the West, in particular through the dissemination of scientific and philosophical knowledge. Throughout, Jones displays flashes of humor and reveals unexpected links between events and figures, noting, for example, that the patron of Flemish painter Jan van Eyck also helped send Joan of Arc to her death. This richly detailed history will appeal to aficionados and newcomers alike. Agent: Georgina Capel, Georgina Capel Assoc.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
September 15, 2021
Jones returns with another sweeping history of the medieval world. Having penned books about specific elements of his specialty (Crusaders, Magna Carta, The Templars), the author chronicles the 1,000-year story of the Middle Ages. His latest is a doorstop but never less than absorbing. In traditional histories, the Middle Ages extend from the fifth century to the 14th century. Jones extends it to the 1527 sack of Rome; he makes a solid case that the end did not occur until the Protestant Reformation shattered the Catholic Church. In the first 70 pages, the author describes the Roman Empire's painful decline and abdication of the last Western emperor, whose successor referred to himself as the king of Italy but declared a symbolic obeisance to another Roman emperor, this one in Constantinople. Jones reminds readers that this "Eastern" emperor ruled the Balkans, today's Turkey, and the Middle East and attempted, with temporary success, to win back lands in Western Europe and North Africa lost to "barbarians." This Byzantine Empire considered itself Roman and, although vastly shrunken by Islamic conquests in the seventh century, remained in power for a millennium until the Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453. The author delivers long essays on the early years of European nationhood, the rise of monasteries, knighthood, feudalism, and the Crusades. Less familiar is the catastrophic 13th-century Mongol invasion of Europe, followed by a commercial revolution, the rise of a merchant class, trade, scholarship, transoceanic exploration, and technology such as printing, which ultimately weakened the power of the Catholic Church by encouraging the rise of secular society. Despite a nod to contemporary interpretation (climate change and slavery receive much attention), this is traditional great-men-and-events history, but Jones writes a lively narrative, freely expressing doubts when it's not clear what actually happened. A fine account of a distant era that still echoes today.COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
September 15, 2021
Despite the immensity of the task, renowned historian Jones (Crusaders, 2019) makes the 1,000-year history of the Middle Ages accessible and utterly fascinating. He does so by consistently applying two techniques, strategic use of primary source material and relatable comparisons to modern times. The first approach creates narrative authenticity, as illustrated in the chronicler Procopius' assessment of the Byzantine emperor Justinian as "dissembling, crafty, hypocritical, secretive by temperament, two-faced . . .a treacherous friend and an inexorable enemy." The latter technique makes history especially relevant to today's readers. For instance, Jones highlights the often overlooked appropriation of the name Charles Martel (a Middle Ages Frankish military leader) by white nationalists who were linked to mosque shootings in France and other countries. On a lighter note, the heroic tales of knights, such as The Song of Roland, were, according to Jones, akin to "modern superhero movie franchises," begetting spin-offs and sequels. The book's subtitle includes the word new, and deservedly so. This is a refreshing take on a long, complex period in the human story.COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
September 1, 2021
In this engaging and monumental work, Jones (The Templars; The Plantagenets) chronicles over a thousand years of European history. He establishes two aims: first, to explore the different powers that shaped the medieval world; and second, to entertain readers. In both respects, the work is successful. The "powers" Jones discusses include the standard kings, queens, popes, knights and other expected players from medieval Europe, but also merchants, monks, and the impact of climate. A chapter on the rise of Islam particularly stands out, as Jones gives the religion and its practitioners fair attention and assessment. In many popular medieval histories, Islam is something that happens to Western Europeans; in this work, Islam and Muslims are discussed in terms of their own agency and history. While there is much to cover, the work doesn't overwhelm, thanks to its thematically organized chapters that follow a relatively loose chronology. Footnotes with modern comparisons and witty asides adorn most chapters; not every reader will appreciate their style. The book's illustrations and historical maps add deeper context. VERDICT While this work does not break new ground, it will satisfy readers of popular history, particularly of the epic variety.--Evan M. Anderson, Kirkendall P.L., Ankeny, IA
Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- popularity
- 2041
- links
- self:
- href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/52bd6ae4-a8d7-402f-9dc1-11ee60e883d0/metadata
- type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
- self:
- id
- 52bd6ae4-a8d7-402f-9dc1-11ee60e883d0
- starRating
- 4.3
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/1523-1/{52BD6AE4-A8D7-402F-9DC1-11EE60E883D0}IMG100.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/1523-1/{52BD6AE4-A8D7-402F-9DC1-11EE60E883D0}IMG200.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/1523-1/{52BD6AE4-A8D7-402F-9DC1-11EE60E883D0}IMG150.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/1523-1/{52BD6AE4-A8D7-402F-9DC1-11EE60E883D0}IMG400.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- isPublicPerformanceAllowed
- False
- languages
- code: en
- name: English
- subjects
- value: History
- value: Military
- value: Nonfiction
- publishDateText
- 11/09/2021
- otherFormatIdentifiers
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781984880871
- mediaType
- eBook
- shortDescription
- "Not only an engrossing read about the distant past, both informative and entertaining, but also a profoundly thought-provoking view of our not-really-so-‘new’ present . . . All medieval history is here, beautifully narrated . . . The vision takes in whole imperial landscapes but also makes room for intimate portraits of key individuals, and even some poems."—Wall Street Journal
"A lively history . . . [Jones] has managed to touch every major topic. As each piece of the puzzle is placed into position, the modern world gradually comes into view . . . Powers and Thrones provides the reader with a framework for understanding a complicated subject, and it tells the story of an essential era of world history with skill and style."—The New York Times
The New York Times bestselling author returns with an epic history of the medieval world—a rich and complicated reappraisal of an era whose legacy... - sortTitle
- Powers and Thrones A New History of the Middle Ages
- crossRefId
- 6116705
- subtitle
- A New History of the Middle Ages
- publisher
- Penguin Publishing Group
- bisacCodes
- code: HIS010020
- description: History / Europe / Western
- code: HIS027230
- description: History / Military / Medieval
- code: HIS037010
- description: HISTORY / Europe / Medieval
