Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination

This is one of the best cross-over books (appealing to both academic and lay audiences) that I've ever read. It unobtrusively explodes many myths about the "unsophisticated" Middle Ages while providing a well informed picture of medieval food and economic practices. It is a genuine pleasure to read. Freedman is an engaging writer who never wastes his reader's time (no academic jargon here). A wonderful book.A little quibble: Why is his name listed as "Professor Paul Freedman"? Yes, he is a professor, but so are many authors, and that professional fact does not usually get registered as part of an author's name; this makes it sound like his first name is "Professor."

I had to buy this book for a class and read the whole thing. Based on the title and description, I was expecting to be wholly bored for however long it took me to read it, and thus, my expectations were set pretty low. Therefore, I was quite stunned to find that this book was actually engaging, and I do not regret reading it whatsoever. Given that it was a required read, I would have given it two stars or less had it not been so surprisingly entertaining. Granted, I would never in my life have thought to pick it up, much less read through it, on my own, but despite the daunting number of pages (which was only so because I thought it would be so uninteresting), I found myself actually interested in reading it and learning about what it was attempting to communicate to me.However, if you are not interested in mythology, history, or economics, this book will likely not be your forte, and I will definitely say that if you are looking for an interesting introduction to one of the aforementioned topics, this book is not a good beginners' read. However, if you have some background in or are exceptionally interested in one or more of those topics (or if you are actually interested in the spice trade of the "medieval" time period), I would highly recommend this book.

I had to force myself to continue reading, although the book was interesting. This is the sort of book I might read for a chapter or two, every few months.Of course, if medieval food/medicine are interesting to you, you’ll probably like it more than I did.Later note: I did keep reading a chapter or two, every so often, and I did enjoy it.Still later note: I grew tired of reading all the details. The author did a LOT of research, and included all of it. At 42%, I deleted the book. (The notes began at 64%, so I read about 2/3 of the book.)

This is a learned book, and a pleasure to read. Freedman succeeds admirably in describing and explaining Medieval Europe's passion for spices. But the most interesting part of the book is his analysis of Europe's voyages all over the world to obtain spices for domestic consumption. It's an ambitious project, and he pulls it off in a style that is lucid and also fun.I also very much enjoyed another book on food that Freedman recently edited, "Food: The History of Taste" (University of California Press, 2007). The essays in the book are consistently insightful and entertaining. Here's to more academic work on the history of food!

An interesting history of spices. I was hoping for more medical info, but it was still very good.

A great book with all the background you could ever need about the Spice Trade. Really great overview of how it shaped our modern world. I learned a lot that I don't think I would have come across had I not read this book. There are some very cool spice-laden recipes from the Middle Ages in the pages that I would love to try. It's interesting to see how they progress from being very heavily spice-laden to more light on the spices as we get closer to modern times.There's a lot of links between different historical events and the spice trade in this book that really open your eyes to how things in history are interconnected. For that I'll recommend this to any novice historian that wants to get a good idea of how history is shaped by a web of events and not a straight line. The only issue is that is drags a bit in places, but it doesn't happen often.Highly recommended.

I am really impressed, the book was marked used and very good and it was like new. I was expecting some ware and tare but there was none.

This is a wonderful book that tells you why the medievil people expended so much energy and adventure to pecure spices. Reading the menues and seeing how the spelling has changed was great. There was also the sadness that came over me when I realized how many of the birds, animals and fish that the population were able to eat that are now extinct. This bookwas a wonderful refresher to remember the richness of the medievil people.

good.

I think Paul Freedman is one of the greatest history professor in the US. This is a remarquable work and will make you travel throughout time and places...