Mont Saint Michel and Chartres is a record not of a literal jouney
but of a meditative journey across time and space into the medieval
imagination. Using the architecture, sculpture, and stained glass of the
two locales as a starting point, Adams breathes life into what others
might see merely as monuments of a past civilization. With daring and
inventive conceits, Adams looks at the ordinary people, places, and
events in the context of the social conventions and systems of thought
and belief of the thirteenth century turning the study of history into a
kind of theater.
As Raymond Carney discusses in his introduction, Adams' freeedom from
the European traditions of study lends an exuberance--and puckish
wit--to his writings.
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