Book Review | Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages (Jones)

good morning everyone i hope you're having a great weekend i just wanted to hop on real quick and do a very quick book review um on this year dan jones powers and thrones the new history of the middle ages um firstly i'll just start by saying that i buy all of the books that i read i am not sent anything for review so these are my honest thoughts and opinions um i think if you've watched my previous videos you'll know how much i do uh love dan jones works um his previous work but um i'll try to be as honest and objective with uh each new book that i i review so firstly um this book is rather large a chunker if you will um but it does cover the thousand-year uh history uh or period that we call the middle ages um this book i'll firstly say was published in 2021 the end of 2021 um either i think it was released october or november um and this is a head of zeus limited book um so as i say uh it is quite large um but um he this is a narrative history and there's a lot of summary um i think he did a great job of choosing what to select in terms of what warranted discussion and um review in terms of the middle ages so of course it does begin with the sack of rome and finishes with the protestant reformation and you know exploration to the new worlds um so it does follow um rightly so and obviously the chronological events that took place in the middle ages but what i did really like is he groups in it if you can see while it does follow chronological history um each chapter is titled a particular group of individuals so romans franks mongols merchants scholars builders so i really do like the fact that there is a sense of agency there in terms of political and social change um uh regarding the uh groups of people that did shape the middle ages um of course it's called powers and thrones so um there is a heavy focus on on um the individuals who shape the middle ages um but he also in this book doesn't necessarily ignore um you know environmental and climate factors that um also had a huge impact on the way um you know the trajectory of the middle ages so there is um this is very eurocentric um with the exception of um the arabs and the mongols which had a huge impact on on europe during the middle ages but what i did like is his deep analysis of the mongols and and the arabs because i think when you do look at other books on the middle ages um if the authors over are of a you know eurocentric background then you're not really going to see as much in-depth analysis of say the mongols so i did appreciate that one thing i did uh one thing that it doesn't necessarily bother me but i suppose this is a pet peeve um there seems to be a tendency recently um in publishing these days uh where you know there's a subtitle here a new history and i wouldn't necessarily call this a new history um nothing that dan jones says is newly discovered um necessarily but um i think what he does do or what he uh what he achieves is of course putting his own spin and interpretation on events um he does write a lot of popular history and i think that is his greatest talent making um books enjoyable to read making history enjoyable to two readers um but he also ha this book has a very contemporary feel he does a lot of comparison to modern events there's a lot of trump references in here but i think for me personally there's going to be a point where you know a book that's called a new history isn't going to be new anymore um i mean there must be like at least 10 books that i've got in my collection here's one um here's another book a new history of humanity i think there's one on my kindle called the new history of colonization um that's just a problem that i've got with the uh the subtitle but that's such a minor issue um and i think he does achieve um his goal of making this a contemporary um read uh on the middle ages for um readers of today um so i all in all i'd give this book um i couldn't find much fault with it i i think it was a great narrative history um i think there were it you know it was enjoyable but balanced with um you know scholarship um i think he did a great job focusing on other areas of the middle ages that you don't necessarily see in other curricula particularly this broader look at the mongols um and yeah it just had a fresh modern feel to it so i would probably give this between a four and a half to five star um uh review so anyways i hope you found that useful um as a it's quite a large book and um you know it wasn't cheap it was about 20 pounds when i bought it um so uh i just wanted to mention that because um obviously if you were gonna pick it up um i would say this does come highly recommended and i do think it's worth every penny um if you're like me you normally wait till things are reduced in price but this is one of the books that i was looking forward to as a new release and i am glad that i i purchased it for full price so anyways i'll stop rambling on um i hope you enjoyed this if you do pick it up let me know what you think and have a great weekend booktube bye