Fourteen different French historians trace this triumph [of individualism] in richly illustrated chapters surveying the terrain of privacy by a variety of procedures...The book is a feast for the eye; it is fascinating, often compelling in its exquisite detail.
   --Maureen Quilligan, New York Times Book Review

Profusely and intelligently illustrated, generously margined, and wisely and clearly written...[this volume] invites a profound reconsideration of our notions about much of the past and suggests new ways of looking at it...We ought to be inspired to think about our own notion and practice of private life.
   --Edward Peters, The Nation

The material in this second anthology...is personally involving and profoundly informative...This immense work of imaginative history lifts us out of our own constructed walls. It reveals to us not only the shapes and colors of another time, but of our own.
   --Paul Kafka, Bloomsbury Review

This volume offers a very full, richly variegated picture of the life, in different places and at different periods, of the Middle Ages. The lavish and well-chosen illustrations match the text.
   --Maurice Keen, New York Review of Books

Like its predecessor in the same series, [this book] makes full use of the whole range of evidence and, most strikingly, the visual...This thoughtful, handsome book would be a fine addition to any library.
   --David Herlihy, Boston Globe

Georges Duby, a member of the Académie Française, is Professor of Medieval History at the Collège de France.

Arthur Goldhammer received the French-American Translation Prize in 1990 for his translation of A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution.

Read More by Phillippe Ariès:

• A History of Private Life, Volume III, Passions of the Renaissance
• A History of Private Life, Volume IV, From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War
• A History of Private Life, Volume V, Riddles of Identity in Modern Times
• A History of Private Life, Volume I, From Pagan Rome to Byzantium

Read More by Georges Duby:

• A History of Private Life, Volume V, Riddles of Identity in Modern Times
• A History of Private Life, Volume III, Passions of the Renaissance
• A History of Women in the West, Volume III, Renaissance and the Enlightenment Paradoxes
• A History of Women in the West, Volume IV, Emerging Feminism from Revolution to World War
• A History of Women in the West, Volume II, Silences of the Middle Ages
• A History of Private Life, Volume IV, From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War
• A History of Women in the West, Volume I, From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints
• A History of Women in the West, Volume V, Toward a Cultural Identity in the Twentieth Century
• A History of Private Life, Volume I, From Pagan Rome to Byzantium

Read More by Arthur Goldhammer:

• France in the Enlightenment
• A History of Private Life, Volume III, Passions of the Renaissance
• The Village of Cannibals: Rage and Murder in France, 1870
• A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution
• A Small City in France
• A History of Women in the West, Volume II, Silences of the Middle Ages
• The Languages of Paradise: Race, Religion, and Philology in the Nineteenth Century
• A History of Private Life, Volume IV, From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War
• A History of Private Life, Volume V, Riddles of Identity in Modern Times
• The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France Since 1944
• A History of Women in the West, Volume I, From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints
• Blessings in Disguise: or, the Morality of Evil
• A History of Private Life, Volume I, From Pagan Rome to Byzantium
• Dionysos at Large
• The Living Eye
• Tocqueville and the Two Democracies
• A History of Women in the West, Volume V, Toward a Cultural Identity in the Twentieth Century
• A History of Women in the West, Volume IV, Emerging Feminism from Revolution to World War
• A History of Women in the West, Volume III, Renaissance and the Enlightenment Paradoxes
• Greek Virginity
• Paris: Capital of the World
• The Demands of Liberty: Civil Society in France since the Revolution