Essay on a World Lit Only by Fire

A World Lit Only by Fire by William Manchester takes the reader on a journey through the Middle Ages. Of the many topics covered throughout this book, the two main ones would be the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church and the adventures of Ferdinand Magellan. This book is very well written from an objective stand point and the author’s tone presented itself during the entire novel. However, the novel is difficult to follow during certain parts because of the overwhelming details provided. The author did a decent job of writing the book from an objective point of view. As a whole, the book can be considered unbiased even though some sections and quotations he chose to use seem very biased. “ That being a grave insult in Italy, Soforza--who later fathered children--shouted out what all Rome suspected but none had dared whisper: that the Borgia pope’s real motive was incestuous, that he wanted his captivating daughter, not remarried but active in his own bed” (82). It is difficult to seem unbiased when the author is writing about a time full of corruption, violence, and greed. The Catholic Church was very corrupt in almost everything it did in these times and because Manchester stated the facts about what they were doing does not mean that he had a negative bias toward the church. Writing about controversial topics and going into great detail also adds to the basic knowledge that most people have learned from high school because he discusses topics that would not be found in a history book. The author also did a good job of presenting the facts in an interesting manner and adding in his tone and subtle opinions to make the information livelier. For example in the quote “The new professors, called humanists, declared the humanities to be superior to medicine, law, and theology--especially theology” (106), the author could have simply left out the last two words, “especially theology”, but the sentence would have lost the element that adds a subtle hint of