A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance Portrait of an Age by William Manchester; The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance Portrait of an Age; Unabridged MP3 Audio Book; Narrator Barrett Whitener

From tales of chivalrous knights to the barbarity of trial by ordeal, no era has been a greater source of awe, horror, and wonder than the Middle Ages. In handsomely crafted prose and with the grace and authority of his extraordinary gift for narrative history, William Manchester leads us from a civilization tottering on the brink of collapse to the grandeur of its rebirth, the Renaissance, a dense explosion of energy that spawned some of history's greatest poets, philosophers, and painters, as well as some of its most spectacular villains.

William Manchester (1922-2004) was a professor emeritus of history at Wesleyan University. His bestselling books included The Last Lion, a multivolume biography of Winston Churchill, and American Caesar, a biography of Douglas MacArthur.

Barrett Whitener has won half a dozen coveted AudioFile Earphones Awards for his audiobook narration. His audiography includes A Reporter's Life by Walter Cronkite, Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose, and Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman.