Matthew Gabriele is Professor of medieval studies and chair of the Department of Religion & Culture at Virginia Tech, USA. He is the author of An Empire of Memory: The Legend of Charlemagne, the Franks, and Jerusalem before the First Crusade (2011), many articles on medieval Europe and the memory of the Middle Ages, and most recently with David M. Perry The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe (2021).

• General Editor's Preface, Antoinette Burton (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA)Introduction, Matthew Gabriele (Virginia Tech, USA)1. War, Marcus Bull (University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, USA)2. Trade, Anne E. Lester (University of Colorado Boulder, USA)3. Natural Worlds, Vicki Szabo (Western Carolina University, USA)4. Labor, Martha Newman (University of Texas at Austin, USA)5. Mobility, Shayne Legassie (University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, USA)6. Sexuality, Patricia Skinner (Swansea University, UK)7. Resistance, Brett Whalen (University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, USA)8. Race, Cord J. Whitaker (Wellesley College, USANotesFurther ReadingNotes on ContributorsIndex

Each volume could successfully stand alone as a reference work on an era: Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, the Age of Empire, and the Modern Age ... The introductory essay to each is a valuable resource for comparing traditional political and economic histories with the more critical and cultural works presented in subsequent chapters. Accompanying each volume is a list of illustrations, notes, further reading, and an index ... Overall, students seeking a comparative, interdisciplinary, and compelling account of the spread of Western empires will find much of interest here. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.