Ratings10
Average rating4.2
Amazon.com Review
In this sweeping historical narrative, Barbara Tuchman writes of the cataclysmic 14th century, when the energies of medieval Europe were devoted to fighting internecine wars and warding off the plague. Some medieval thinkers viewed these disasters as divine punishment for mortal wrongs; others, more practically, viewed them as opportunities to accumulate wealth and power. One of the latter, whose life informs much of Tuchman's book, was the French nobleman Enguerrand de Coucy, who enjoyed the opulence and elegance of the courtly tradition while ruthlessly exploiting the peasants under his thrall. Tuchman looks into such events as the Hundred Years War, the collapse of the medieval church, and the rise of various heresies, pogroms, and other events that caused medieval Europeans to wonder what they had done to deserve such horrors.
Series
2 released booksA Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century is a 2-book series first released in 1978 with contributions by Barbara W. Tuchman.
Reviews with the most likes.
I can't quite recall if I've read this whole book. I think so, but it MAY be that I've read only part of it while at university.
Medieval history isn't usually my thing, but someone must have recommended this book to me because it's been on my “to read” list for a loooong time. I am so glad I did make time for this!
It's fascinating and the closest thing to a narrative that you could probably get from a time so long ago when written records are so unreliable.
Also, the audiobook made for food listening while I was moving house.