The Green Ages: Medieval Innovations in Sustainability | 
panI admire the impulse behind this book, I do, but it's either very naive or deeply disingenuous. If it calls the sale of indulgences an early way of crowdfunding, I can't trust the analysis of anything else, even if I can't directly critique it myself.
"Indulgences worked roughly like modern crowdfunding initiatives, with all the attendant opportunities as well as risks."
No, come on, this is getting silly, not just naive.
I've not been reading a lot the last couple of weeks, but this evening I picked this one up on a whim. So far, it feels kind of... naive? Like, sure, monasteries were *intended* to hold property in common, but it's hard to hold the *intentions* of the Benedictines and Cistercians up as examples of workably sharing within a community: both orders became stinking rich.
That said, I'm giving it time and thought, because it's easy to knee-jerk.
