Mundy's Europe in the High Middle Ages, along with the two companion works by Denys Hay and Christopher Brooke, provide an extraordinarily useful study of the medieval period. They fit perfectly between a general survey text and more narrowly focused monographic studies. Using a largely similar structure, the three books provide a comprehensive and broadly focused study of all aspects of the medieval experience. But what is most useful about these books, especially Mundy's, is that they look beneathe the events of their respective periods to find deeper but less obvious forces of change. Mundy's particular emphasis on the expansion of literacy and education beyond the clerical class is an extremely important insight. For a non-specialist who seeks a complete but managable and eminently readable collection on the Middle Ages, these three books are without peer.