Tues. Nov. 28

From our Western Civilization classes, we remember the Middle Ages as being the most mysterious of times, and imagined ourselves never living into double digits, toiling in the fields all day. Disease, no electricity, no future. And still, loads better than the Dark Ages. We would have looked forward to our place in heaven. But Thomas Cahill, author of "How the Irish Saved Civilization," has found the roots of modernism in his research about those days in "Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe." We knew the Catholic Church was against all the aforementioned things, but we didn't know how these things grew out of the Middle Ages anyway, partially because of a progressive papacy and the veneration of the Virgin Mary. Cahill discovers the spirit of experimentalism and questioning, and calls the Franscicans the world's first hippies. (What would the late Abbie Hoffman think?) Cahill speaks at 6 p.m. Tuesday Nov. 28 at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, part of the Brookline Booksmith reading series. But your $2 tickets at the Booksmith.

290 Harvard St., Brookline, 617-734-2500 coolidge.org