Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie has had a success which few historiansexperience and which is usually reserved for the winner of the PrixGoncourt...Montaillou, which is the reconstruction of the social lifeof a medieval village, has been acclaimed by the experts as amasterpiece of ethnographic history and by the public as a sensationalrevelation of the thoughts, feelings, and activities of the ordinarypeople of the past." Times Literary Supplement.