![]() ![]() As Pye demonstrates, the Vikings had the widest impact on the area. The Venerable Bede wrote on nature and the tides and eventually became known as the “father of English history.” Throughout this time period, books were borrowed and copied, and the independent thoughts contained within often made them worth burning. ![]() ![]() Learning was widespread during the Dark Ages, and countless universities were formed. Their wide trading prompted the reintroduction of money and, most importantly, shared ideas. They drained the salt marshes with dikes, ditches and windmills and created pastures for grazing. Pye begins with the Frisians, who inhabited the areas along the border of the Netherlands and Belgium. This book must be ranked right up there with the works of Mark Kurlansky and Thomas Cahill as a primer of the steps that led to modern civilization. The author chronicles the enormous impact of the countries bordering the North Sea, showing how the light shining out of those dark years changed our attitudes about art, mathematics, engineering, science, society and even women’s rights. ![]() Novelist, journalist and historian Pye ( The Pieces from Berlin, 2004, etc.) challenges all our notions of the Dark Ages and shows the vast accomplishments completed long before the Renaissance. ![]()
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