This year, we at THP are trying to incorporate more nonfiction into our reading lists. And now seems to be the perfect time, with a new nonfiction release out today! Our latest book review features a self-help book: Self-Help from the Middle Ages by Peter Jones.
Self Help from the Middle Ages puts a lens on medieval times and the seven deadly sins. It has been a few months since our last brush with a self-help book, but springtime always makes us motivated for a fresh start.
Peter Jones’ Self-Help from the Middle Ages incorporates the author’s personal experiences, while also painting a bigger picture that is relatable to many readers. So, let’s jump in to our new book review and share our main takeaways!
Book Overview: Self-Help From The Middle Ages
Summary: Peter Jones was teaching medieval history at a university in Siberia when his third icy winter there plunged him into a dark place. Luckily, he knew something few of us know–that for all its reputation for darkness and superstition, the Middle Ages were the golden age of self-help. So he set out on a journey to explore the wisdom of medieval scholars, saints, and mystics, looking for an alternative path through the challenges of modern life.
Never in history, Jones marvels in Self-Help from the Middle Ages, has so much energy and talent gone into studying how the mind works as in the medieval centuries. Although today we think of the Seven Deadly Sins as a catalog of forbidden behavior, in the Middle Ages, at the height of their currency, they were a path to self-knowledge and self-forgiveness. Together, pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony and lust were a psychological map that laid out seven basic patterns of thought, showing how our thinking can go astray and how we can find our way home.
In Self-Help from the Middle Ages, Jones explores each sin, searching the hellscapes of Hieronymous Bosch and Giotto, the intimate confessions of Dante and Margery Kempe, and the personal struggles of Francis of Assisi and Catherine of Siena. Along the way he discovers a treasure trove of lost truths about temptation, frustration, addiction, compulsion, burnout, rage, fear, anxiety, and grief that still pulse with life. With beautiful illustrations drawn from medieval art and literature, his book is a gift to all who love history and anyone who has ever sought wisdom from the past.
Our Review
This book walks us through each of the seven deadly sins: pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice (greed), gluttony, and lust. In each chapter, the author gives us the medieval context behind each sin. He draws from relevant artwork found during the Middle Ages and even incorporates his personal experiences related to the sin and his own research.
Here are some of our main takeaways from each chapter:
- Pride isn’t just egotism, where we consider ourselves above others. It can also be hyper-independence, in the way that we think we don’t need anyone else. Pride closes us off to new perspectives and valuable feedback. It blinds us, forming a tunnel vision.
- Envy, in the medieval sense, is “an allergy to other people’s successes.” Rather than celebrating and uplifting other people, we want those achievements for ourselves. Envy thus forms a different type of blindness, where we only pay attention to another’s failures.
- Anger stems from what we consider an injustice to ourselves. It can feel worse when it’s a problem of our own making. For the most part, anger comes from something we care about enough to protect or avenge it. We should recognize it, but not let it take away our powers of judgement.
- Sloth is more than simple laziness. It can involve falling out of love with something, losing interest in life, and depression. Sloth will try to take over your routine and energy. When this happens, it’s important to find one thing or person to anchor you.
- Greed, at its core, is about possession. It can happen when we try to attach ourselves to material things so much that it becomes part of our personality. Rather than getting carried away by greed, it’s up to us to cultivate our wonder, to adore without wanting.
- Gluttony involves excessive consumption, primarily in food and drink. It makes us go out of our way to get what we want. Gluttony also manifests in being overly fussy about food and the conditions we require to eat it. Finding a balance for ourselves is important.
- Lust is an excessive sexual desire that “can quickly morph into abuse.” It obsesses over a single moment of infatuation. The challenge comes from our ability to guide lust in the right direction, to move it beyond the self and the body, and to open it toward love.
Self-Help from the Middle Ages by Peter Jones pleasantly surprised us with how much we learned using a medieval lens on modern self-help.
Release date: April 14
Order Self-Help from the Middle Ages here!
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