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When I saw the subtitle of the book was how Ancient wisdom illuminated the "Dark Ages". It lead me to expect it was written within that secular mythological ethos; that being that the West was once a glorious civilization until it embraced Christianity which submerge Europe into the dark ages, this darkness continued until finally a few brave souls embraced ancient Greek wisdom, and throwing off the shackles of Christian superstitions, embraced science in the face of the hostel, backward Christian opposition, this ultimately resulted in renaissance, enlightenment, prosperity, moral progress, and the iphone.
I was glad to find that instead, despite of the subtitle (which I see later editions changed), Rubenstein sought to share medieval history in its complexities, twist and turns and good and bad. He goes someway in refuting the secular myth, for indeed though there was darkness, persecutions, fear of the new, and occasional oppression of ancient wisdom, science and philosophy were often supported by the church and engaged in my devoted Catholics. Though the discovery and translation of Aristotle did lead to advances, sometimes, the love for Aristotle and fear of differing with his teachings, lead to stagnation, so ironically the more intolerant catholic leaders who forbade certain ideas from Aristotle lead to experimentation and the freedom to differ with the great Philosopher, when he was wrong.
So yeah, this was a good book, an interesting history, it is worth a re-read.