A WORLD LIT ONLY BY FIRE

By William Manchester
Little, Brown And Company (1992) $24.95
Reviewed by J. Douglas Allen-Taylor


In a great bonfire of continental energy during a brief period straddling the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the nations of Europe burst the restrictive religious bonds of the old Holy Roman Empire, drew and quartered the world, and refashioned it in their own image. How did Europe come to so dominate the rest of the us, and what was the genesis of this new imposed order? Good questions to ask on the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' voyage to the Americas. A World Lit Only By Fire, William Manchester's engaging new study of medieval and Renaissance Europe, is an excellent place to begin (or continue) looking for answers.

Manchester brings a new perspective to subjects we may have thought had already been fully explored. The arrival of Columbus in the Americas is often downplayed, for example, on the theory that the Vikings preceded him by 500 years and the Native Americans had been there all the time. Manchester argues, convincingly, that the importance of Columbus' "discovery" was that it led directly to the European occupation of the Americas. For good or ill, our modern world is the direct result. Whether you're Norseman or Navajo, you must admit he's got a point.

Manchester is a marvelous storyteller, with the ability to portray events and people in a way that makes them both clearly understandable and wholly unforgettable. Myself, I had always imagined Martin Luther as sour-faced and book-buried, but Manchester paints a slightly more lively portrait: "His holiest moments often came when he was seated on the privy... It was there, while moving his bowels, that he conceived the revolutionary Protestant doctrine of justification by faith." During one such contemplative session, Luther imagined he was interrupted by the Devil, whom he fiercely engaged in a wild, feces-throwing fight. A colleague later wrote, "Having been worsted...the Demon departed indignant and murmuring to himself after having emitted a crepitation of no small size, which left a foul stench in the chamber for several days afterwards."

A good book to read for an overall perspective on the period.