From the Brink of the Apocalypse: Confronting Famine, War, Plague, and Death in the Later Middle Ages

"The late middle ages were marked by unprecedented chaos. At no other time in history did so much misery-war, famine, plague, and death-converge in such a short span of time. It is no wonder that late medieval men and women believed that the Apocalypse was upon them. It is this unlucky confluence, and the resulting attitudes and beliefs of medieval peoples, that historian John Aberth explores in this original work. Taking his thematic cues from the biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Aberth describes this period of unrivaled strife in a compelling, accessible narrative, and takes to task the conventional notion that the later middle ages represented a period of cultural decline. He presents a more nuanced and complex understanding of the late medieval period, and also proves that the story of how late medieval men and women bravely faced down the Apocalypse is "worth the telling for the sheer drama of it."--Pub. desc.