Thoroughly absurd and yet all-too-real, My Way to Canossa follows four journeys that re-imagine the Middle Ages amid the political and technological changes of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. It isn't an historical novel. It's an investigation of how the present uses the past. In the midst of a world-wide financial crisis, an American history buff flies to Germany, rents a minivan, picks up some passengers and sets off on a journey across the Alps. The year is 2009, but in the minivan, it’s 1077. My Way to Canossa explores: a Canadian self-help book for men, with roots in the anti-Semitic movement of 19th century Germany, an ultra-Catholic biography of a warrior princess, marketed to teenage girls, and pop-feminist telenovelas full of wish fulfillment fantasies, ...all interwoven with the history buff’s blog.