This book is a groundbreaking history of balance, exploring how a new model of equilibrium emerged during the medieval period.

The ideal of balance and its association with what is ordered, just, and healthful remained unchanged throughout the medieval period. The central place allotted

Reconstructs the origins of the idea that social conflict, and not concord, makes political communities powerful.

Originally published: 5th ed. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1956.

The thousand years explored in this book witnessed developments in the history of Ireland that resonate to this day. Interspersing narrative with detailed analy