Self-Help From the Middle Ages

The history is first- rate. Jones is a thoughtful, well- travelled scholar with a hugely impressive command of archival material across Europe. He is also an astute art historian and a good storyteller with an eye for a killer image. * Sunday TImes *
An enthralling book … the history of emotions can be a difficult field, but with the seven deadly sins, Jones has the perfect framework to communicate the intangible. While the subject matter can be weighty, the overall effect is that of a fun conversation with a scholar who had an encyclopaedic knowledge and knows how to make it relatable. – Seb Falk * Times Literary Supplement *
Peter Jones’s funny, exhilarating book shows that our ancestors were just like us — but wiser … His scholarship is as deep as the Mariana Trench, but he bears it like thistledown. He is never pompous, and his book is funny, informative, even optimistic. It seems that our ancestors really were very like us, only a good deal wiser. We could learn a lot from them, and this is the perfect place to start. * Financial Times *
A moving, eloquent and important book, reclaiming centuries of subtle psychological thought, and with it the emotional lives of our medieval ancestors, from the permafrost of modern contempt. * Spectator *
Self-Help From the Middle Ages is one of the most compelling medieval history books I have ever read. It does what I feel all good history books should do – it informs us about ourselves; it does not just tell us stories about the long-since dead. It will tantalise and delight those who think they know everything there is to know about the medieval mindset as well as those who cannot imagine that there were once different ways of thinking. I genuinely loved this book. – Ian Mortimer, author of THE TIME TRAVELLER’S GUIDE TO MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
A thoughtful exploration of medieval ideas - and how they can illuminate a modern life. A lovely book in which personal reflections and historical insights from the Middle Ages are woven together to look at emotion, desire and self-understanding. – Peter Frankopan, author of THE SILK ROADS
This book came as a wonderful surprise. Peter Jones, a learned historian, combines self-help, the middle ages, and autobiographical confessions and somehow weaves a tapestry that triumphantly relates all three. In particular, he highlights the subtlety and psychological insights in medieval writers, whose wise treatments of disorderly desires have helped him to navigate his own life, and could help any of us to do the same. – Simon Blackburn, author of THINK
From Lucifer’s iridescent footwear, to supermarket shopping in Vladimir Putin’s Siberia, this is a unique and delightful book: part personal memoir, part investigation of the very idea of sin, part magical mystery tour through some of the world’s greater medieval book collections. I can think of nothing else quite like it. Written by an acknowledged expert, yet with the thrill of a treasure hunt, it blows the cobwebs off centuries in which, however virtuous those in pursuit of goodness, the Devil always had the best tunes. – Nick Vincent, author of A BRIEF HISTORY OF BRITAIN 1066-1485
Peter Jones’ Self-Help from the Middle Ages is a treat for the history glutton. Funny, candid, and revelatory, it shows how medieval thinkers struggled with the same quirks of the human condition as we do. I loved following Jones on his quest to decode the medieval recipe for a contented life, whether it was to a classroom in Siberia, a library in London, or a Spanish cathedral claiming to house the Holy Grail. Jones makes the Middle Ages feel close enough to touch – and its lessons are needed now more than ever. – Irina Dumitrescu
In the fine tradition of medieval confessional writing, Self-Help from the Middle Ages examines the ways in which voices from the past can help us navigate our present-day struggles, no matter what they may be. Combining thoughtful scholarship, timeless wisdom, and aching vulnerability, Peter Jones reminds us that the one constant in history is the beautiful complexity of the human heart. – Danièle Cybulskie, author of HOW TO LIVE LIKE A MONK

Peter Jones is a writer and historian who first fell under the spell of the Middle Ages at the age of 9, while visiting the National Portrait Gallery in London. After growing up in the circle of towns around Heathrow Airport he moved to New York in his early twenties, and received a PhD in Medieval History from NYU.

Over his career he has taught at the University of Toronto, University College London, and Complutense University of Madrid. Peter also spent several years working at the School of Advanced Studies in Tyumen, Siberia, and his experiences there - especially the class he taught on the Seven Deadly Sins - inspired his book, Self-Help From the Middle Ages.

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