The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Medieval World Book

3 and a half stars. this successor to Colin McEvedy's iconoclastic New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History is a disappointment. abandoning the chronological and wideangle-lensed viewpoint of the McEvedy in favour of a return to the conventional thematic organization has yielded a less brilliant and less comprehensive view of the period. it fails to capture not only the nature and extent of external and internal invasions of Europe during this period, but also changes in population, the Church, and especially trade. it concentrates greatly on the 1000-1300 period in history, giving only cursory attention to the remainder of this long era. it seems to sanitize the effect of both the religious schisms and the political objectives of the Catholic Church during the medieval period. it concentrates lopsidedly on English and French history. and it inexplicably ends with a section on the "first voyages to the New World" without ever mentioning the earlier Viking voyages. even on culture (which McEvedy basically ignores) this volume is oddly spotty, perhaps as a result of opting for the thematic closeup format rather than taking a chronological and comprehensive narrative line.