At the Dawn of Modernity: Biology, Culture, and Material Life in Europe after the Year 1000 (review)

Levine has made an ambitious attempt to synthesize scholarship from social, economic, cultural, and demographic history into a new grand narrative of medieval European social development. In the process, he also develops a new argument about the origins of modern Western society. Early modernization began, according to Levine, in the period between the year 1000 and the outbreak of the Black Death in 1347/48, when several forces came together to produce a characteristically European social structure. The most important of these forces were, first, the "Feudal Revolution," when a warrior aristocracy armed with the new military technology of knighthood forcibly compressed a formerly heterogeneous group of producers into a uniform class of unfree laborers bound by feudal relationships; second, the Gregorian Church reform, which ignited a large-scale institutional effort to control the religious, family, and sexual lives of all Europeans; and, third, a unique northwest European family structure characterized by late marriage ages for women. The word "biology" in the book's title both refers to the ways in which European reproductive strategies reacted to changing conditions and acts as a metaphor for historical change. Levine continually refers to DNA -like strands of development joining together into combinations that became characteristically modern.

By combining social, cultural, economic, and demographic history in a single narrative, Levine creates a fresh and thought-provoking perspective on the Middle Ages. His book falls short of its aims, however, on a number of levels. Most important, Levine never clearly defines what he means by "early modernization." Despite repeated references to this or that phenomenon being evidence of "early modernization," what made something "early modern" remains unresolved in the end. Moreover, Levine's use of others' work seems shaped by the needs of his argument; he shows little apparent sensitivity to how their work has stood the test of time or how it fits into a continuum of debate. For example, he accepts the eleventh century "Feudal Revolution" as a given, with only a cursory and incomplete glance at the still-raging debate about whether it took place, and he accepts White's largely outdated thesis that the stirrup provoked a revolution in military tactics during the ninth and tenth centuries that in turn led to feudalism (17-20).¹

The many valuable insights contained in the book are too often obscured by Levine's presentation. His prose is dense, sometimes confusing, and burdened with jargon. The book is also unfocused. It is difficult to keep track of where his synthetic narrative is leading or how it all relates to his central point.

In short, At the Dawn of Modernity does not live up to its promise or potential. Thought-provoking and interdisciplinary as it may be for those who persevere, the book is seriously weakened by its failure to clearly define its premises, by its unconvincing use of secondary scholarship, and finally by its own weight.