"The Three Orders"

The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined (Georges Duby, translation by Arthur Goldhammer)

I have to give Barnes and Noble some credit here; As much as I complain about their history section being nothing but Hitler and annoying gimmicks (ex. Salt), they've launched a line of books called "Barnes & Noble Rediscovers" that re-prints old, interesting books like this. I then have to remove almost all said credit because they felt the need to stick not one, but TWO of those horrible price stickers on the dust jacket, the kind that refuse to come off and leave a big smear of old glue and sad paper that you can't remove even with water and a paper towel.
So what was I talking about? Right, this book. I'm glad this book was "rediscovered", because it's probably the most readable book out there about the schema of medieval French society being made up of the titular three orders, those who pray, those who fight, and those who work the land, and oh man does that ever sound tedious now that I'm typing it out. I know it sounds bad, but I found this book to be pretty interesting and surprisingly readable. My only caveat is that you really have to pay attention, because if you let your mind wander away from the text you can skip down half a page without realizing it and become totally lost. I suppose saying it's the best concentration-demanding 400 page tome on the organization of medieval society isn't much of a compliment, but if you've made it this far without being scared off, I'd recommend at least checking it out of your local library.

Grade: B?