Atlas of the Medieval World » (New Edition)

Rosamond McKitterick is Professor of Early Medieval History, Cambridge University. She is also the editor of numerous books including The Early Middle Ages: Europe 400-1000, The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 2, and The Frankish Kings and Culture in the Early Middle Ages.

McKitterick (early medieval history, Cambridge U., UK), who authored many of the entries in addition to editing the atlas, provides a broad view of the Middle Ages that eschews an exclusive focus on political developments and the western Christian arena to write instead on commerce, city planning and development, art and culture, and the lives and histories of diverse peoples in the eastern and western Christian, Muslim, Chinese, Japanese, Hindu, and African worlds. Entries provide a history and definition of the event, group, or idea accompanied by highly detailed maps and frequent color plates of relevant works of art and architecture. A sampling of entries includes Byzantium 700-1000, Byzantine culture, the Abbasid caliphate, the Temple kingdoms in India, the Tang dynasty, Sung China, Africa 1000-1300, the Spanish reconquista, and commercial expansion in the later Middle Ages. This work was first published by Harper Collins in 2003 as The Times Medieval world. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Library Journal

McKitterick (early medieval history, Cambridge; The Early Middle Ages: Europe 400-1000; The New Cambridge Medieval History: Vol. 2) has produced a handsome, richly illustrated, and informative atlas, exploring through maps and narrative the millennium from the end of the Roman Empire to the colonization of the Americas. Originally published in the United Kingdom as The Times Medieval World (2003), also edited by McKitterick, this North American edition is almost identical to the original, bearing only slight differences in appearance. Unlike other atlases covering medieval civilizations, e.g., Atlas of Medieval Europe (Angus MacKay & David Ditchburn, eds.) and Colin McEvedy's The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History, rev. ed., this atlas is not solely restricted to Europe but spans the entire globe. While emphasis is placed on Europe and the Middle East, regions like Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia and countries like China and Japan receive their due through explorations of their trade and religious and cultural influence. In total, the work features more than 90 digitally produced color political and thematic maps as well as hundreds of sumptuous photographs of art and architecture. Bottom Line Atlases abound (see also John Haywood's Historical Atlas of the Medieval World), and there are only so many a library needs; if your reference collection could use an update, this makes for a valuable acquisition.-Edward K. Werner, St. Lucie Cty. Lib. Syst., Ft. Pierce, FL Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.