Life and Work in Medieval Europe

Well, the book is a product of it's time. The way the Germans are mentioned is outright reference to barbarism and being uncivilized. The only excuse I might find acceptable for this is that the author has twice seen the German army march through his country, including once less than a decade prior. Still, I shudder to think if he had discussed Muslims. He seems to switch between saying the rich exploit the poor and saying they're greedy. He tries to hide the fact that he's very partial to France since he's French, and for the most part he does, but it still shows. I suppose this is understandable, especially considering how much American historians buy into American exceptionalism.

My biggest criticism is that the book doesn't really tell a story. It mentions very few specific people, and instead has lots of numbers. It is useful, but I prefer a story to read. It's also very generalized, but it is a thousand years of history on an entire continent in 300 pages.

So, I'd say this is a book to read to see where the historiography of the period was, but to get a more accurate picture, there are better, more recent books.