I love reading about history and the medieval time period especially, because so much of our culture and language formed during that time. This book covers many topics and does a good job of relating them to modern society, especially in the epilogue. There is much information here and many interesting side stories.

However, I found the beginning far too preachy. I understand Christianity was important to Europe and through it people accomplished great things, but all religions have been used as an excuse for almost every war in human history. Pious Christians were no better. This side was not given much airtime and thus the opening chapters seemed slanted.

Also, the narrative often jumped over time and space, which was sometimes confusing. I would have preferred it to be more chronological (which it was, mostly).