As an English speaker, I was quite late in discovering how important Michelet is in the world of French culture. I have not read particularly very many of the English great historians. For example, I have only got to about page 14 of my edition of Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Nevertheless, as I was learning to read French more and more, I seized upon this book as an ideal way to both learn more French, and to get a continental perspective on an era that I crave more knowledge of.
That was about 25 or 20 years ago. I can not remember the exact date that I read this book, and the publication date of 1998 alarms me a bit, because I was sure that I read it before that, and I was sure that it was in the Bouquins edition. I guess I could find out more about whether 1998 is designated as other than a first edition by the publisher. But this all just highlights the fact that LibraryThing is a good way to keep archive records of dates of acquisition and of reading of various books. In fact, I do have a written record--in the form of a reading log-book--somewhere and I will look at it again and confirm if indeed this is the actual volume of Michelet that I read. How bad is that if I read a book that long by someone, and I could not even remember if it was the moyen age, or the revolution that I actually read. Oh well, this just means I must go back for curiosity now and see actually which volume it was.
Michelet has a style that makes history interesting to read. Later on I read some other authors or reviewers mentioning him in conjunction with Ranke, the German historian. Now there is another author I would like to read, to find out more about why Ranke is so famous in his national Pantheon.
Another view into the Middle Ages that I have enjoyed recently is that I read The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett and have just begun to read World Without End. Period of mystery yet of which we have a wide variety of sources to examine, if we are willing to work at it and seek them out. ( )