In the Wake of the Plague by Norman F. Cantor

I found this presentation effective, easy to follow, and in my opinion, this format was by far the best choice. For example, gentry, peasants and church officials had their own sections on how they were effected during and after the plague. Sections were separated by population class, and had a timeline through and after the many waves of plague.

I found the entire book to be well referenced, well explained, effectively presented and believable. Through the whole book, records from the time are referenced. The current leading theories the explained, symptom, time lines, outbreaks and environments were described/explained effectively, and researchers and historians and historical records were referenced. The mysterious inconsistency of the recorded history of the black death was well explained here. This was the best book I have read so far. I am not a expert of the Dark Ages but I have read SEVERAL books on plagues and epidemics including the black death. 3) Incoherent book structure, dry presentation and cherry picked fact, and incomplete narrative of the black death because origin is not sufficiently covered. 2) Made out all lords and church officials out to be greedy, murderous villains and the root of all evil. Some of the negative comments I read were: 1) Skewed negative skew on part of author, making the dark ages out to be all bad, evil, backward and generally horrible. For more scholarly coverage, try Ziegler's classic, 'Black Death,' or Aberth's more recent 'On the Brink of the Apocalypse.' John Hatcher's 'The Black Death: A Personal History' presents the impact of the plague in another highly readable book.

Read Tuchman's 'A Distant Mirror' instead (I don't recommend trying to listen to it) for an informative, well researched, and well written account of the 14th century horrors (and there certainly were horrors!). Unfortunately, I also found the reader's voice and intonation nerve-scratching.

Cantor's attempts at humor and shock tactics might work well in a classromm of freshmen or sophmores in a compulsory course, but provide no relief for someone choosing to read, or hear, the book. Further, the presentation of the factual material rarely breaks the surface and is more misleading than informative. Cantor's lack of perception regarding the Medieval period shines through! The 'facts' that he presents are a hodge-podge of mostly old scholarship firmly entrenched in the 'horrible Dark Ages' mentality.

In the Wake of the Plague by Norman F. Cantor