History will not be kind...

To this book. And neither will I. I usually inhale this type of history, but after 100 pages I found myself reaching for a pencil to stick in my eye. My main reading time is in bed before a night of restful slumber. Most of the time, the history titles I read keep me turning page after page as I feel my mind light up like a switchboard. This book has the effect of a Xanax and I'm drooling and jerking awake after reading only three pages. Not good. History should be interesting and readable. Well-written history, I daresay, can read even better than a tightly-plotted novel.

Unfortunately, not so with Barbarian to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered by Peter S. Wells. It's one of those revisionist types of histories; this one aims to refute the widely held belief that the Dark Ages were truly "dark," as compared to the glorious age of Rome immediately preceding it. I'm all about being swayed, but this book is poorly formed. The author says he's going to show us that the so-called "Dark Ages" were really a time of innovation and invention, this time using "newfound" archaeological evidence to buttress this argument. First of all, archaeological evidence can be interpreted in a variety of ways, and secondly, his ordering of the evidence at hand lacks any type of context or explication. We're told of the contents of gravesites and learn that people between 400-800 A.D. ate legumes based on the examination of their bones. And this tells us...?? While Wells announces his theme in the beginning of the book, we're not treated to it ever again. He never raises the theme again and lets the reader drift out to sea, wondering what it is exactly they are supposed to be learning.

In the end, it's just a poorly put-together piece of history. Perhaps the professor felt like he didn't need to abide by the rules of proper paper-writing. It would've helped his general audience if he had.