A book finds a new reader

Medieval conversations · twelfth–thirteenth centuries

Stories of survivors seem to settle a question. A boy discovers that reading can deepen his pain. The same words have a different force in a newspaper and before an angry crowd. Through situations like these, we approach questions about knowledge, freedom, and living together. We begin with five brief glimpses of books, universities, and printing in Europe, then spend time with arguments we can enter ourselves. These selections, from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, connect European and American thought with older traditions and other worlds. The voices we meet will disagree. The question you resist may be the one that stays with you.

A glimpse of medieval Europe: books copied and translated, study in monasteries, and growing cities where universities took shape.

The European Middle Ages lasted roughly from the fifth to the fifteenth century. In centres such as Toledo and Sicily, books were translated from Arabic into Latin, including works by Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd. Readers who knew no Arabic could enter the conversation. In a Europe where the Church had a major role in education, cities grew, universities emerged, and communities gathered to study.