G. Geltner

G. Geltner is Professor of History at Monash University, currently focusing on the history of health and the environment. His latest book, Roads to Health: Infrastructure and urban wellbeing in later medieval Italy (2019), has won the American Association for Italian Studies book award. His current book project is entitled Lucifer’s Land: The miners of Europe, 1200–1550.

‘When we talk about the Middle Ages: Revisiting the power of periodisation’ by G. Geltner

April 2024, no. 463 • 25 March 2024

Few terms capture the imagined structure of European history as succinctly, and aptly, as ‘the Middle Ages’. Whether the era is being invoked fondly, casually, or with deep disdain, the term at once offers a comprehensive, normative account of civilisation and casts aspersions on those out of sync with it. It was designed to do just that. ‘The Middle Ages’ inserts itself as an antithesis b ... (read more)