Description: "Whose Middle Ages? is an interdisciplinary collection of short, accessible essays intended for the nonspecialist reader and ideal for teaching at an undergraduate level. Each of twenty-two essays takes up an area where digging for meaning in the medieval past has brought something distorted back into the present: in our popular entertainment; in our news, our politics, and our propaganda; and in subtler ways that inform how we think about our histories, our countries, and ourselves. Each author looks to a history that has refused to remain past and uses the tools of the academy to read and re-read familiar stories, objects, symbols, and myths"--
Brief description: Nina Rowe is Associate Professor of Art History and a member of the faculty of Fordham University's Center for Medieval Studies.
Review Quotes: This book is timely in a way that won't get old. It has something for everyone, from professional educators seeking to enliven their classrooms to anyone curious about the origins of popular symbols and phrases. With a plethora of compelling case studies from contemporary culture, religion, art, and politics, there are vital lessons on almost every page. In example after example, the authors show how people shape the Middle Ages to reflect their fears and dreams for themselves and for society. The results range from the amusing to the horrifying, from video games to genocide. Whose Middle Ages? Everyone's, but not everyone's in the same way.---Michelle R. Warren, author of Creole Medievalism: Colonial France and Joseph Bédier's Middle Ages