Review: Famous Men of the Middle Ages
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 24, 2013
Famous Men of the Middle Ages was published in 1911 by John Henry Haaren. First of all, let me say that I truly enjoyed this book; it has a lot of famous people that were prominent in our history, some of which most of us know little or nothing about. Frederick Barbarossa, Guttenberg, and Tamerlane for example. But there are a few inconsistences. The title is Men of the Middle Ages; yet it starts off with legends of the Norsemen such as Thor, Odin and Siegfried. There is an article about Attila the Hun, and Alaric the Visigoths, who most would agree predate the Middle Ages. There is a story about Joan of Arc, certainly a famous and worthy historic figure, but obviously a female. That said, most of the writing is the middle ages, starting about William the Conqueror and ending in the late 1400's. There are many interesting insights on many famous people, and if you put it in the proper context of being the view of someone writing over 100 years ago, it is enjoyable. A lot of people covered quickly in just a few pages in one source. One other minor thing; there are some minor formatting issues converting the text into the Kindle format, but it isn't bothersome. I would give it 3 stars.