James Barbour, a Jeffersonian Republican Book

Fascinating book, not always very well written alas but very interesting nonetheless. He identifies the rise of urban, as it were, culture in opposition to the folk one that was both vibrant and socially structuring. By having a different set of social requirements in towns, and what with the church seeing its opportunity to impose its views and replace the profane with their branch of the sacred, traditions evolved and ways to think the world changed.
Think Ginsburg, think Pastoureau, think Braudel and Duby etc.: this is on a par with those - profound questions of civilisation, social life are asked, and profound answers (or hints of) are given about the life-span of ideas, beliefs, and how those that emerged in the middle-ages continue to structure our way of thinking and living together.
Magnificently interesting.