THE MEDIEVAL WORLD I Kingdoms, Empires, and War

These are typical of many audio programs from academics offered under the rubric of formally or informally presenting a college course on a given subject. Everything depends on the delivery skills of the professor in question. Madden has a friendly approach, and he has organized his subject in linked snippets arranged around central themes that are introduced by the lecture subtitles of the two sets. Anyone even faintly interested in the topics gets a good dose of information. It seems that certain presuppositions on the medieval world have been altered since many of us were in school, so there’s plenty of opportunity for both the history and delivery to engage the listener. D.R.W. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2010]