WORLD WITHOUT END, by Ken Follett.

I do a lot of traveling. Maybe you do too. Usually when I go places, it’s on an ordinary day, with not much happening. I’m going to experience day-to-day life in that location. I don’t make a habit of visiting places specifically for big events --- you’ll never catch me in New York City on Thanksgiving for the big parade, or Washington, D.C. for a Presidential inauguration, or anywhere there’s a political convention, Olympic Games or a big carnival. I’m not that kind of tourist. But there are plenty of you who are --- those who want to be at the big events, who are drawn to the crowds and the excitement. And that’s fine, as long as you don’t expect me to go with you, because I’ll be just as happy staying at home and watching it on TV, with chips, salsa and Dr. Pepper close at hand. None of us has access to time travel, but if we did, I expect that it would be the same way. I would go back in time, like a shot, but I’d be lining up to go to English country houses in the 1930s, or taking a first-class trip on an ocean liner in the Gilded Age, or something else elegant and fun, with good cooking and good company close at hand. Some of you, however, would be lining up to go to Gettysburg or Super Bowl III or some other major historical event, just to see what it was like.In WORLD WITHOUT END, Ken Follett has written a big book --- big enough to make both types of people happy. This work of historical fiction spans events in the English city of Kingsbridge from 1327 to 1361. Kingsbridge was the site of Follett’s previous excursion into the medieval world, the majestic THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH, and he returns to it two centuries later, changed in many ways but still recognizable.Most of the charm of the first book came from the richness of detail in everyday medieval life, with Follett providing a guided tour through the monastic, courtly and architectural worlds of the 12th century. In WORLD WITHOUT END, he performs much the same service for the 14th century, documenting the intrigues of the increasingly corruptible prior of the Kingsbridge monastery, the rise in power of the merchant class, and the intricacies of bridge-building and cathedral redesign. The novel explains and explores the entire feudal system, from the lowly serf to the battle tactics of the English nobles, and does so not just comprehensively but in a comprehendible way.However, Follett is not just interested in the day-to-day realities of medieval Europe. He takes his characters to the Battle of Crecy, one of the turning points in the Hundred Years War, showing both the high strategies of the opposing generals and the suffering of the wounded troops on both sides. The 14th century was also the start of the Black Death in Europe, and Follett’s cast of characters --- although severely depleted by the disease --- must figure out strategies for coping with the widespread death and destruction caused by its foul spread.Where WORLD WITHOUT END slips out of the medieval world is in its protagonists, who aren’t modern, necessarily, but certainly have attitudes that are recognizably modern. Follett’s favorite characters in both Kingsbridge books are the innovators, people in the medieval world who recognize the transformational power of technology. In THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH, his characters built fulling mills and flying buttresses. Much of the focus in WORLD WITHOUT END is on rebuilding the 12th-century infrastructure while making advances in other technologies like cloth-making and medicine. (Follett is especially scathing about the use of ancient Greek medical techniques used by his monks as opposed to scientifically-based methods developed and disseminated by his nuns.) The book of course is chock-full of plots and counterplots and long-buried secrets, but it is also about how the people of the medieval era began the process of setting the modern world into motion.Follett’s novel is a long tour of medieval England, meandering and convoluted at times but always enthralling and powerful. It is the perfect book for any long trips you might have scheduled, no matter why you’re planning on going where you’re going.