... without a blog entry is driving me insane. However, I finally have my laptop back to working order and so I can write from home. (And resume editing my first novel, writing my second, and tweeting non-stop.)
First order of business is that I changed my Twitter handle to @torriejae - short for Victoria Jeannette. Just in case you are on Twitter.
So I finished Rodney Stark's The Victory of Reason, recently. Brilliant read, brilliant mind. I'm pretty sure he sited about 70 sources a chapter. And I'm glad I didn't give up on the book because his conclusion is one I couldn't have articulated with any less information.
The basic premise is that after hundreds of years (thanks, Voltaire) of promoting this nonsense that the Middle Ages were in fact the "Dark Ages" and that people were so backwards and steeped in mysticism and barbarism that even they knew they were uncivilized, the Middle Ages were a time of great technological and scientific advancement. Stark even goes so far as to call the idea of there every having been a "Dark Ages" a complete myth. He also explains that the Catholic church did not in fact hold nearly as much power as Protestants and secularist historians like to claim it did.
This is all very true. The Middle Ages brought forth a host of development in Europe on almost every front. I wrote that the Middle Ages and the Catholic church were responsible for true science, universities and capitalism. I'm quite sure you can imagine the uproar that caused.
Highly recommend this book. You can get it on Amazon.
Hope you all are well and I hope to be back tomorrow!
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