I'm not technically something like a professional historian, though I took a fair amount of history in college. My big gripe with the lack of focus on lay-history or a more academic approach is that it is accompanied by a rather short length; I felt like the book could have hit more specifics and complex details if it had been longer. As it stands, it felt like it spent a lot of time explaining the culture of the Middle Ages, and it did so quite well, but it spends so much time on it that one wonders if there was more that could have been discussed in a longer or more deep overview.

Mostly I write reviews just for fun. It's a way to keep myself accountable for reading and writing, but I was a semi-professional reviewer (the sort that gets free stuff but not a salary) for a while.