Book Information

Book ID Asin: 0306813580
Book Title: The Medieval Fortress: Castles, Forts, And Walled Cities Of The Middle Ages
Book Author: J. E. Kaufmann,H. W. Kaufmann
Book Format and Price:
Book Format Name: Hardcover
Book Format Price: $42.30
Book Format Name: Paperback
Book Format Price: $24.99
Book Price: $24.99
Book Category: Books, Arts & Photography, Architecture and unknown
Book Rating: 106 ratings

Book Product Detail

• Best Sellers Rank: #423,292 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #502 in Architectural History
  • #791 in Military Strategy History (Books)
  • #1,385 in Arts & Photography Criticism

• Customer Reviews:
  4.6 out of 5 stars 106 ratings

Book Review

Name: Craig Shepherd
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: The schematics are Excellent
Date: Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 10, 2022
Review: This is a great book. As others have mentioned, the photos are not fantastic. They are placed to demonstrate specific aspects of castle design during medieval times. However, the schematics are amazing. The book includes schematics of various castles throughout Europe and to a lesser extent the Middle East. However, detailed schematics are also included for well systems, latrines, security features to gates, gate houses and entryways, wall constructions over various time periods, and so forth. Whether used for historical purposes or inspiration for roll playing sessions, this book provides a lot of useful information.

Name: Joseph Shane
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Content is Excellent, Quality is Lacking
Date: Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 10, 2021
Review: The written and visual content in this book is excellent. Engaging writing with an absolute wealth of diagrams, drawings, and photos. I have nothing critical to say in this regard.

The paper quality, however, is a serious downside. Think newspaper but pulpier. I've handled pages with care because there is the real sense that I could rub the ink off if not careful. This also impacts the quality of the photos that have been included. It's common to see printing errors or ink bleeding in my copy, and this is unfortunate given the emphasis on visual examples accompanying the text.

It's a great book that seriously deserves an upgrade in production materials, especially for the price.

Name: Castle Fetish
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A Good General Overview but......
Date: Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 17, 2004
Review: On the whole, I found this book to quite informative with many detailed descriptions of medieval European castles and cities. On some specific castles the data can be fairly general. I found this to be most obvious on castles that I have been fortunate enough to visit in the past and purchase a guide brochure or booklet from which I naturally compared the data.
I found the section on eastern European fortifications and their developement over the centuries to be very interesting as this was a subject I previously knew very little about.
But I do have one major 'gripe' or dissatisfaction with the book. The detailed and extensive floor plans provided throughout the book all suffer from some serious 'under labelling'. For example, a specific castle floor plan might have 20 itemised (numbered) points or features of interest on it. But when one refers to the "legend' or 'key' to find out what a certain feature is, it becomes painfully obvious that not all 20 features are actually clarified or described in the key. This is a fault that is not isolated and is unfortunately prevalent on the vast majority of floor plans in the book.
I'm not sure whether this problem is peculiar to the published edition I purchased or is in fact inherent throughout the whole published run. In any case it appears to be a large oversite in the 'quality control' department of the book's publication process. Other than these faults, I thought this book to be a good 'read'.

Name: PWS
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Excellent
Date: Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 24, 2021
Review: Great condition as described. Fast arrival. Thanks.

Name: Gary K. Grimm
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Wanted to see more German Castles!
Date: Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 5, 2019
Review: Very informative book and will enjoy reading it!
One thing that surprised me was the lack of more German castles being shown and discussed! With Germany having over 20-25,000 castles I was surprised at so few German castles and more French castles being discussed! Gary

Name: D. Hancock
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Wow, Amazing Book!
Date: Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 17, 2008
Review: The version I got had a red cover, different from the one shown here on amazon. As soon as I opened the book I was already amazed by the first details I saw. There are so many drawings and detials in this book it will make you leap for joy, especially if you are a technically minded drafter like I am. This book isn't just all about pictures though, there is so much more! Plenty of information to keep a guy chewing on this info for a long time. Just get it... you will not regret it.

Name: Fairthought
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: a very good listing of many Europe's castles
Date: Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 26, 2014
Review: If you want floor plans of many of Europe's great castles, this is the book for you. It has good illustrations on Castle architectural elements, and covers a little history on sieges and the advent of gunpowder. I would have liked more historical information, but that would have made this a much larger book.

Name: T. Shryock
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: If you are looking for pretty pictures, this isn't for you
Date: Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 3, 2015
Review: If you are interested in castles, this is the book to have. It has many examples and explains castle construction and design in detail. A treasure trove of information. The photos are black and white, but support the text. If you are looking for pretty pictures, this isn't for you. This is a detailed text telling you everything you need to know about fortresses and castles.

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