I'm no scholar, but I deeply fascinated by history, and as an author of science fiction and fantasy, I take pains to do a lot of research – so when A World Lit Only by Fire by William Manchester turned up on my Audible inclusions, I gave it a whirl, thinking, "Hey, I can learn something".
Manchester, a journalist, initially set out to write a biography of the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, but then went down a rabbit hole researching the time period that led him to write a work of much broader scope in which he explores the history of western Europe.
My initial assessment was that this was luridly fascinating and chock-full with fascinating factoids, and until I perused Goodreads to see what other readers thought, I reckoned this was a good book for folks wishing to get a start into understanding this very broad time period.
And it was like ahem, okay then. Some *actual* historians on the time period weighed in with their opinions on Manchester's research and opinions, so I've revised my initial thoughts.
Thing is, Manchester has a turn of phrase that makes his writing accessible, but gets a bunch of facts horribly wrong and expounds on a bunch of half-truths with his assumptions. That's the crux of it. He's written some titles related to the modern period, which may be worthwhile looking into, because he *can* write, and does so in a way that is compelling and informative. Just that some of his information is not quite as accurate for this to be considered a work that is a paragon of historical greatness. One of the criticisms lobbed at him is that he didn't base any of his research on primary sources. Which might present a problem.
Anyhow, I guess this is a case of "Reader Beware",
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