On those Susan Wise Bauer histories

OK, when I very first recommended the Susan Wise Bauer books on world history I *did* say they have their limitations. I also said they *might* just seem like too much of a mere outline, and too focused solely on kings and caliphs and regimes and battles with no mention of culture and what everyday people were actually doing and so on. So I wasn't totally blind to their faults. Yet I have to say now those faults may out weigh the virtues and that the books maybe aren't worth acquiring.

I don't write this because she deleted my comment from her mommy blog. I've been suffering over that event, I admit, but I am able to be objective and render a now more informed opinion of her work apart from that treacherous act on her part. (For those who don't know me I am joking...)

Still, though, I think she's pretty valuable for getting the Medieval period in order in your mind (a difficult era to get straight in one's mind). It's just that a little goes a long way.

One problem with her book is the numerous sections on Chinese, Indian, and Korean history. It turns out there is a reason we don't read much Chinese, Indian, and Korean history. It's because *nothing is happening in Chinese, Indian, and Korean history.* Other than the usual. But once you read through a cycle or two of the usual then you've got the sense of it. It's like reading about animals and their territorial battles. Yet what Bauer does is over and over write out the same cycle as if she is intent on following her chronological outline no matter what. (Also, Korea translates and publishes all her books, so she obviously probably feels an obligation to really lay on the Korean history.) I mean, though, really, it's the same historical types and patterns and events played out over and over and over, and you don't have to recite them, names and dates and battles over and over and over. As you read through the book you really see how *much more interesting* western history is. You keep saying, "Go back to Charlemagne. Go back to the Byzantine empire. Go back to the Germanic kingdoms. Go back to the Vikings."

Her virtues I still proclaim. The perspective is still valuable. She's just a bit shallow. (That's another thing, she is a mommy involved in a thousand different family things, and you get no sense that she has experienced and digested what she is writing about, though she does have understanding of the time-line and players and geography and can deliver that which is actually very valuable for the Medieval period.)

For instance, though, she let on in her blog that she is just now listening to and appreciating Renaissance Mass (polyphony) as she is researching her next volume on the History of the Renaissance World. That's what I mean. She has a shallow understanding of these things.

I also noticed this here and there when she mentioned Christianity. She wrote something on the Puritans that exposed a severely shallow understanding of the Puritans. (Why she was mentioning Puritans in a book on the Medieval period I don't recall, but she did it.) It was like a popular myth understanding. That level. I wrote it off. But it was telling.

They're good books to skim. The first two volumes anyway. I'll probably acquire the third and fourth volumes too when they appear over the next several years.

I want to add, though... I don't want to discount the value in going through the entire time-line in the way - limited though it is - that she presents it. It needs to be filled in, yes; and the disappointing thing here is she is very much capable of filling in a story here, a well-chosen event there, a discussion of a central work of art as well, single things that capture a 'whole', just as she stated in the forward to her first volume where a good story tells us more than the usual encyclopedia article style of presentation. In fact, the fact that she is failing her own standard is probably due to her not focusing enough on the project and thinking she can do everything else at once and not sacrifice anything, which, getting back to the comment of mine she deleted, was exactly what I was implying, which is why she deleted it. I think she realizes she's falling short of the mark on this particular project. /ct

ps- I wrote all this in an email just to write it, but it's really for my PPP blog in case she or anyone she knows googles her name periodically to see what people are saying about her...

pps- One way to say the above is there are no set pieces in her presentation of history. It's almost like when she gets close to a set piece she backs off like she is saying: "Whoa, I'm not actually a real literary or inspired writer. Let's go back to reciting the bare outline..." I think she is a good enough writer, and inspired at that, to present some necessary set pieces. She's inspired in that she is capable of presenting history in a clear way, with understanding (arts and technology and such aside), and her approach of encapsulating a time and place in a well-chosen story rather than distant fact is a good and needed one, she is just not living up to her own approach. As her Medieval volume gets on into page 400 or so the droning "let's get this done", unfinished, hurried, outline aspect of it really comes to the forefront.