Book excerpt: This suggestive and original work, which throws new light on the popular uprisings of the Middle Ages, was orginally published as a paperback in 1972 with the title Les soulevements populaires au moyen age. The title chosen for the English translation is designed to emphasise that this is something more than a 'straight' history: it is a discussion, an anlysis, of a wide-ranging and puzzling historical phenomenon.