Review
"[Kreiner is] a wry and wonderful writer. In 'The Wandering Mind,' she eschews nostalgia, rendering the past as it really was: riotously strange yet, when it comes to the problem of attention, annoyingly familiar . . . Kreiner is fascinating on the ways monks attempted to manipulate their memories and remake their minds, and on the urgency they brought to those tasks, knowing the dangers that lurked even if they eliminated all physical temptations."
― Casey Cep, New Yorker
"A life of prayer and seclusion has never meant a life without distraction. As Jamie Kreiner puts it in her new book, 'The Wandering Mind,' the monks of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages (around A.D. 300 to 900) struggled mightily with attention....Charming. . . [Kreiner uses] the cultural obsession with distractibility to train our focus elsewhere, guiding us from the starting point of our own preoccupations to a greater understanding of how monks lived."
― Jennifer Szalai, New York Times
"A lucid and vivid examination of how early Christian monks created habits of contemplation to 'connect their minds to God,' opening 'panoramic vistas of the universe that transcended both space and time.' Ms. Kreiner, a professor of medieval history at the University of Georgia, also shares intriguing perspectives on our own values and priorities....'The Wandering Mind' focuses on more than the past, and its implications demand our attention."
― Dominic Green, Wall Street Journal
"As Kreiner elaborates in this smartly readable book, people who engage in exertions of concentration have likely been dealing with distraction forever.... the refined effort of attention was, as Kreiner winningly puts it, 'a paradox of states and scales,' seeking a broader vista by narrowing focus... This is ultimately an intensely inner struggle, and it’s a testament to Kreiner’s narrative skills that she manages to keep things so interesting . . . The Wandering Mind is an oddly cheering reminder that this persistence can yield results."
― Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Review
"Unless you have phenomenal self-control, distraction is probably something that you’re contending with on a regular basis . . . Jamie Kreiner’s new book offers an unexpected point of reference for this nominally-modern condition: monks living hundreds of years ago. How they experienced and contended with distraction might surprise you; it could also be the key to a less distracted 2023."
― Tobias Carroll, InsideHook
"Trying to eliminate distraction? Historian Kreiner looks in the archives at how medieval monks worked to find focus―and at what we can learn from them."
― People
"Tackling the timeless theme of distraction, Kreiner, a professor of history at the University of Georgia, explores what the behavioral habits of medieval Christian monks can teach the modern world. . . [The Wandering Mind] uses a wide array of primary sources spanning the entirety of medieval Christendom, creating a pleasantly readable result. Good proof that the problem of distraction is nothing new."
― Kirkus Reviews
"University of Georgia history professor Kreiner (Legions of Pigs in the Early Medieval West) examines how medieval Christian monks dealt with distraction in this fascinating history . . . Meticulously detailed and surprisingly accessible, [The Wandering Mind] lends new insight into one of the oldest human preoccupations. Readers will be enlightened."
― Publishers Weekly
"Kreiner is a scholar writing in plain English for a non-academic audience, delivering her findings with a light touch. Her book benefits from reaching beyond the usual historical preoccupation with Europe, venturing to Eastern Christian monasteries as far afield as Quatar, Iraq and Iran . . . By studying their accounts, Kreiner has discovered “a serious set of practices for cultivating awareness in a world in flux."
― Dave Luhrssen, Shepherd Express
From the Back Cover
“In elaborating the complicated, human battles that medieval monks waged for control over their own minds, Jamie Kreiner provides a compelling call to address our current distracted moment with both more seriousness and more humility.”
―Cal Newport, New York Times best-selling author of Digital Minimalism and Deep Work
“Magnificently learned, charmingly written, and deeply humane, Jamie Kreiner’s The Wandering Mind takes us into the living heart of the Christian ascetic movement in its first centuries. It brings alive, with infectious empathy, the excitements, the strategies, and the perils of the immense effort deployed by men and women―as far apart as Ireland, the Persian Gulf and Western China―to explore the workings of the mind. Seldom has so profound a revolution in the distant past been presented with such verve and understanding, and with so lively a sense of the continued relevance of its hard-won discoveries to our hectic world.”
―Peter Brown, Philip and Beulah Rollins Professor of History, Emeritus, Princeton University
“A meaty read, a deep dive into an exotic past, and yet our shared humanity shines throughout. I enjoyed being led through a time which I had known little about, and learning something about myself there.”
―Ruth Goodman, author of How to Be a Victorian and How to Be a Tudor
“This is far from being a ‘how to meditate’ book in which medieval monks are credited with all the answers. Their writings . . . are full of challenges, setbacks, and even failures to overcome the world’s distractions. Jamie Kreiner reveals particular worlds of monastic spirituality but shows as well that we today, confused about cosmology as we are, worry nevertheless about similar things. A fascinating and convincing work.”
―Paul Freedman, Chester D. Tripp Professor of History, Yale University
About the Author
Jamie Kreiner is a historian of the early Middle Ages and associate professor of history at the University of Georgia. Her work on the early Middle Ages examines the politics, ethics, and scientific sensibilities of those underappreciated centuries. She lives in Athens, Georgia.
