Customer Reviews

In The Wake Of The Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(25)
2 star:		(29)
1 star:		(50)

 

 

Norman Cantor's "In the Wake of the Plague" is rather an interesting read yet my feelings on this were mixed. With only ten chapters and roughly 220 pages, this book can be a useful work for the study of the Black Death due to its use of secondary researches and bibliography. However, it seems to be a bit unreadable and rather a subjective written.

While I was intrigued with his use of secondary sources and his discussion in "Knowing About the Black Death" section, I was rather put off or confused by his writing style throughout this book, and I was not quite sure what conclusion(s) he was relating to the readers.

While the author made some interesting points throughout the book, I was getting the impression that he wrote this book in a hurry.

not much i can add to the other reviews i saw posted.
poorly written, disorganized, excessive repetition,and MANY MANY errors. I just hope students are not required to read this book for history classes.

I was disappointed. The title of the book gives much to live up to - (I look forward to a book that DOES cover what the title of this book describes) - sadly, Cantor falls far short.

One of the few positive things that can be said of this book is that it is brief. That, and it does have a cool cover...Do NOT judge this book by its cover!

While I write this, it crosses my mind that the publisher may have pushed this title on the writer, because it does not describe this book at all.

A better title would be: "England in the 1300's Including Anecdotes About the Plagues"

The author was let down by his editor as well. Several odd - irrelevant comments survived the process. All they did was to illuminate the authors bias against Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher. What do they have to do with the 14th Century? I'm not sure.

If I wasnt currently interested in the history of the UK, I doubt I would have finished the book. The author really pissed me off at times.

(How ironic that the author takes it upon himself to slander and condescend towards almost every author whose books he has placed in the "Further Reading" section.)

I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!!

(This is the only negative review I have ever posted here. I am not a nasty, tough to please old crank, honest...)

Gave this one 1 star because it is, after all, a book. This slim volume, which I was seduced iinto buying at an airport because of it's interesting title, exploits and damages the author's reputation. Clearly there was some deal between the professor and the publisher not to edit this rambling and disorganized collection of essays. But the collection does not come close to fulfilling the promise of the title. The one big idea about the plague, that it might have been due to two organisms rather than just one, is interesting, but presented with no evidence other than the rapid spread and quick mortality in scantly populated rural areas - where there were cows. But further on, he forgets that theory and replaces it with one that verges on the ludicrous. The book ends abruptly and without warning - one turns the page expecting another sloppy chapter, but there's just nothing. This would be a good short text for budding editors to work on, for English teachers to demonstrate how not to write a book, and for historians on how to damage their reputations. Dr. Cantor might want to use his advance and royalties to buy back unsold copies.

Characterized by poor grammar, excessive repetition, tendentious swipes at modern politicians he dislikes, conflicting equivalences of modern and mediaeval currency, and chaotic organization, Cantor's book appears to be a slap-dash compilation of lecture notes.

After reviewing this book for an undergrad history course (not by choice), I thought I would revisit it as more of a "fun" book--a decision I regret.

The most that can be said for this book is that it does contain some interesting factoids about the time period, which succeed in partially fleshing out the social life of the Middle Ages. For the uneducated layman, it does provide some introduction to the Black Death.

Unfortunately, the author looms large in this book, which by definition makes it bad history. What he presents as history is often smashed over the head and dragged around with his own bias--kudos to the author for mentioning Margaret Thatcher in a book on the 1300s. Of course, all scholars have bias, but here, the bias was not admitted but rather presented as history.

In sum, I can not recommend this book. Though it provides an easy to read introduction to those wanting to know more on the plague and its effects, it does so by presenting a skewed and unfair view of that same time period.

'Early 21st-century man prefers, like Chairman Mao, to let the past serve the present. If he stopped making jejune moral judgments about his ancestors and tried to understand what made them tick instead, he might make less of a mess of his own times.' - Robert Salisbury

It was a dark and stormy night in the groves of Academe as Norman F. Cantor wrote, sipping a glass of claret (clear wine from Gascony), although not of the same vintage as that with which Edward III gorged himself as he was sending off his daughter Griselda to marry the syphilitic king of Castille, who was trying to understand why, all of a sudden, Granada was in the southwest corner of the Iberian peninsula.....Oh help!

Dr. Cantor is a medievalist, and writes in the style of his subjects: very rambling, with a tendency to ramify tediously so he can talk at length about what he finds interesting, whether or not it is relevant. Some good information, some mistakes even a non-scholar reader like me could spot. Not a lot about the plague. Some peculiar theories. What seems to me a misapplication of 20th-century terminology to 14th-century groups (for instance, what sounds like raiders or harriers, he calls terrorists).

I bought this book at the airport in Boston and found it appropriate as an "airport book." On a late night flight, it was entertaining but not intense. Nor was it well organized. The end of the book abruptly stops with comments about Chaucer rather than a summing up of the main thesis. One gets the impression of an erudite academician, late in life, with lots to say but very little energy to say it in an organized way. Some of the errors are obvious, even to someone with only surface knowledge of the period. For example, he states somewhere in the book that Constantinople fell in the 14th century rather than in 1453. But for all that .. it is a quick read and can be considered as something like a "bathroom reader" -- full of interesting tid bits but without much of a unifying thread. His earlier books were much better organized. Maybe he just needs to take a vacation. I'd recommend it as a airplane or beach book (aka "history lite").

I was given this book to read after a family member finished it. I wish I had asked their opinion of it prior to reading it. Not considering myself a subject matter expert, I was hoping for something a bit more substantive. What I got instead was a book filled with a wandering dialogue, broken up in places by the author's personal conjecture/supposition on unrelated matters. If I had wanted Cantor's opinion on today's British royal family, or the current state of the Catholic church, I certainly wasnt expecting to get it in here. But you will and more...
While it was readable, the lack of documentation was somewhat annoying to say the least. I am sure there are other more weighty and well-written tomes on this subject matter. Dont look here if you want the one-stop shop for the issue.
I cant say that I put the book down not learning something new, because I did--but I felt Cantor's own admonition in the text of other authors' predicament with publish or perish certainly reflected on his own writing here.