William Manchester's A World Lit Only by Fire is the preeminent popular history of civilization's rebirth after the Dark Ages. One of the greatest stories in the history of man is the collapse of the Dark Ages: the deadened and superstitious medieval mind dragged into the light of the Renaissance, and the magnificent achievements and spectacular leaps of thought and imagination that followed. To this extraordinary focal point Manchester brings his celebrated gifts as historian and biographer, recreating the metamorphosis of a world in its beginnings, lit only by fire...