In the first section of William Manchester’s A World Lit Only By Fire we are taken into a world that is vastly different from us, and we see a mentality which is almost never see today. One point that Manchester makes is the fact that the peasants in the dark ages had no access to what was happing in the rest of the world. In our age of 24 news networks, internet and newspapers it is hard for one to phantom that if we still where living in the dark ages most of us would be completely oblivious to the activities of the rest of the world outside of our small village.

Another point that Manchester makes is that commoners is they had no conception of time. Most not knowing what century it was let alone the date. For most peasants the time seems to go in a cycle the seasons repeating, as where the days of the week only relevant to know the date of the Sabbath. This is a stark contrast to the life of a modern man where we know time down to the last second. However, where all the peasants needed to know was the seasons and when the Sabbath was the modern man needs to know the time of day as we are constantly on a schedule school starts at a certain time and we must be there whereas the Medieval man had no such dilemma.

The last point I shall mention is to me the most shocking of all of the points Manchester makes. The point I am referring to is the fact that most of the commoners did not have surnames and where either referred to by their first name or a nickname. I found this completely strange, the first points I mentioned didn’t entirely shock me however I had always imagined that most people would still have surnames. I had known that the dark ages where dark but I had figured they would not be that dark.

Manchester in my opinion did a good job at showing the sheer differences between modern mind and the Medieval mind. Having this background really showed me the huge impact that the renaissance had on Europe.

In the next section of A World Lit Only by Fire entitle “The Shattering” Manchester shows us several events that “shattered” the beliefs of the time. Most of these had something to do with the church at the time which is understandable as religion was the biggest part of Medieval and Renaissance life.

The first event I feel shattered beliefs and changed life, did not immediately cause a revolution or any other immediate “shattering” was the works of Erasmus. With his constant criticism of the church and calls for papal reform, he proved that one could criticize the church without being a radical as he was a devout catholic.

Before Erasmus few had dared to criticize the church and those who had were not taken seriously. However with Erasmus and his satires he appealed to all of the classes of people and with that gave the people the encouragement that they could call for reform and criticize. This may have influenced Martin Luther (although at the time he despised Erasmus work) to nail his 95 Theses to the Castle Church. The fact that Erasmus was widely popular also contributed to the change in the thinking that anyone who would criticize the church would immediately be cast into hell.

Even though Erasmus didn’t do anything as rash as Martin Luther he with his clever satire was able to change the mindset of Europeans and with that lead to The Reformation.

My second event is far more obvious then the aforementioned one, The Reformation. Sparked by Martin Luther’s outrage at the sale of indulgences this is the event that split Christianity in half, those loyal to the church and those who were not.

Before the Reformation there was only one word of god and that was the popes. All Christian literature must be in Latin or its native language. As Latin was a dead language most people could not read it and this helped the church grasp control on Christians of the age. With this system freedom of thought on religious ideas was extremely limited saying anything that contradicted the pope would get you labeled as a heretic and sent to jail or even killed.

After the reformation several different churches formed and as they formed they warred with each other. The pope was no longer in control of Christianity as he was before the reformation. Bibles where published in common languages opinions and pamphlets flourished bringing different thoughts to all. One undesirable consequence of the reformation was the different sects fighting with each other. As different sects all thinking they where the one true religion killing other sects and all of these sects despised Catholics burning churches smashing mosaics and statues and even killing innocent women and clergy. Before the reformation there was only one church so violence between two religion was not nearly as high.

The Reformation is the pivotal point in the history of Christianity. Without it today all the Protestants, Baptist, Lutherans, Methodists and Orthodox Christians would be Catholic, and perhaps America would not be founded by the same type of people, as most settlers in early America came to escape religious prosecution. In conclusion I feel that the reformation is perhaps one of the most important sections in the book to fully understand.

In the last section of A World Lit Only by Fire is entitled “One Man Alone” and is solely about Ferdinand Magellan and his journey circumnavigating the globe. In this section Manchester takes time to go into extremely fine detail on Magellan’s voyage. I think that Manchester goes into such detail to express for one what type of man Magellan was, and also and more importantly to show how big the odds where against him actually finishing his voyage which he himself never actually finished. I think that Manchester idolizes Magellan because the fact that he wasn’t look for fame or wealth he simply had a dream and was determined to secede something that I think most people can respect.

A persons whom I feel has had a similar situation as Magellan are the astronauts of Apollo 11. There are several similarities to Magellan, both Magellan and the astronauts had a vague idea of where they were going (Magellan from the other explorers and traders before them and Apollo 11 from the other 5 missions of orbiting the moon) and both had to face extreme odds of coming out successfully however with Magellan the odds where much more substantial that he would fail. But to put it in modern terms the Apollo 11 Lander had about as much computer memory as a hand calculator. When we landed on the moon we gave western society a real feeling that they where in the modern times, as the moon was something that people all over the world have seen and studied for thousands of years. Both Magellan and the astronauts of Apollo 13 made extraordinary accomplishments that shall be looked up to for years to come.