A distant mirror the calamitous 14th century

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In this revelatory work, Barbara W. Tuchman examines not only the great rhythms of history but the grain and texture of domestic life: what childhood was like; what marriage meant; how money, taxes, and war dominated the lives of serf, noble, and clergy alike. What Ms. Tuchman does superbly is to tell how it was. No one has ever done this better.

A distant mirror the calamitous 14th century

Look Inside. In this revelatory work, Barbara W. Tuchman examines not only the great rhythms of history but the grain and texture of domestic life: what childhood was like; what marriage meant; how money, taxes, and war dominated the lives of serf, noble, and clergy alike. What Ms. Tuchman does superbly is to tell how it was. No one has ever done this better. Tuchman at the top of her powers. She has done nothing finer. Barbara W. Tuchman — achieved prominence as a historian with The Zimmermann Telegram and international fame with The Guns of August—a huge bestseller and winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

The major players are The Black Death, The Hundred Years War, the sick, uproarious joke of chivalric valor, The Papal Schism, a distant mirror the calamitous 14th century, ruinous taxation, serfdom, petty feudal institutions, the utter absence of reason, murderous vengeance, horrendous peculation, brigandry, subjection of women, endless cruelty of mankind, crusade against the "infidel," and so on. What an extraordinary read it is when one book is as action packed as thirty riveting novels.

Knopf in It won a U. National Book Award in History. The main title, A Distant Mirror , conveys Tuchman's thesis that the death and suffering of the 14th century reflect those of the 20th century, particularly the horrors of World War I. The book's focus is the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages which caused widespread suffering in Europe in the 14th century. Drawing heavily on Froissart's Chronicles , Tuchman recounts the histories of the Hundred Years' War , the Black Plague , the Papal Schism , pillaging mercenaries , anti-Semitism , popular revolts including the Jacquerie in France, the liberation of Switzerland , the Battle of the Golden Spurs , and various peasant uprisings.

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A distant mirror the calamitous 14th century

The fourteenth century was a time of fabled crusades and chivalry, glittering cathedrals and grand castles. It was also a time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world of chaos and the plague. Here, Barbara Tuchman masterfully reveals the two contradictory images of the age, examining the great rhythms of history and the grain and texture of domestic life as it was lived: what childhood was like; what marriage meant; how money, taxes and war dominated the lives of serf, noble and clergy alike. Granting her subjects their loyalties, treacheries and guilty passions, Tuchman recreates the lives of proud cardinals, university scholars, grocers and clerks, saints and mystics, lawyers and mercenaries, and, above all, knights.

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A handful of the chapters clearly exist just because he had an adventure there, but the bulk of the tale is just 50 years in the struggles of France, where he's frequently a bit player, or a non player. Though I can't complain too much, as a I chose a pre history book because it would fit a reading challenge, and b I choose relatively familiar topics for audio so that I can follow easily and don't feel compelled to take lots of notes. Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata. Barbara Tuchman describes it all brilliantly. Monarchy, centralized government, the national state gained in strength Your account has been created. By clicking "Sign Up", I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Penguin Random House's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and understand that Penguin Random House collects certain categories of personal information for the purposes listed in that policy, discloses, sells, or shares certain personal information and retains personal information in accordance with the policy. Tuchman brings order to this concatenation of relentless self-woundings so that try as we might we cannot look away. I admire the way she's able to follow one historical figure and still manage to tell the story of a whole age, especially one person, in this case Enguerrand de Coucy about whom so little is known other than what he did. Dante pictured Bertrand in Hell, carrying his severed head before him as a lantern.

Account Options Ieiet. Barbara W. Random House Publishing Group ,

Today, as I finished off the last hundred pages, I found myself reading long passages aloud, the way you do when you read Gabriel Garcia Marquez for the first time, or some other uncannily good novelist. It also diminished the legitimacy of the Church in England. Dry, dry dry. Maybe Richard is right and the concerns of the 14th Century just seem too far away, too long ago. Look Inside. A pessimism ensued which would last into the next century. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place. Originally labeled Christmas-cracker trash by retailers and shopkeepers, the small-scale series soon began to see unprecedented worldwide sales in the s. Much of the narrative follows the life of a single French nobleman, the Sire de Coucy. From changes in climate to political changes, all will have far-reaching consequences for the European world. Full of information and telling an amazing tale about the massive changes that take place over the course of a century. It is a colourful romp through history, rather than serious scholarship. Despite the space given to political history, Tuchman is good at showing how different the medieval mindset was from that of late 20th century westerners, even if some of the details don't quite match up with contemporary scholarship.