Unlike Twain's Hank Morgan and some successors, Ford's Mr. Sorrell makes only a very half-hearted attempt to build modern weaponry and machinery in the
Middle Ages. His initial dream of constructing "guns and gas bombs" and making himself "mightier than kings" soon comes to naught. Though he had been a mining engineer in the twentieth century, he has no idea how to go about constructing such devices under fourteenth-century conditions, or even where there are
tin deposits. Having later in his career become a publisher does not give him any idea of how to invent
printing from scratch and anticipate
Gutenberg. He does not know how to make a gun, or in fact anything that would make him useful in the
medieval castle community into which he has fallen. Instead, Mr. Sorrell finds that a golden
cross which he carries causes him to be mistaken for a Greek miracle-worker – which has many advantages in medieval society, including enjoying the unlimited hospitality of a castle and having beautiful ladies vying with each other for his love. He also inspires the ladies to take up arms and hold a
tournament in competition with their knightly husbands – and being a fair horseman, makes a credible effort at becoming a
knight himself. It is the reverse of ''
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'', but the details of daily life are rendered more feelingly, including the quite earthy and mercenary motivations of many of the medieval characters (for example, the small-minded power struggles taking place in a
nunnery, under a very thin veneer of piety). Cathedrals, so stately and calm to us, turn out to have been crowded, garish, noisy, and commercial. Just as he begins to really enjoy himself as a thoroughly medieval man, Mr. Sorrell is rather frustratingly thrust back to the twentieth century – a modern man wiser for having been instructed by the people (especially the women) of the past, and having "learned the wisdom of history". ==See also==