A distant mirror the calamitous 14th century

In this revelatory work, Barbara W.

Jump to ratings and reviews. Want to read. Rate this book. Barbara W. The 14th century gives us back two contradictory images: a glittering time of crusades and castles, cathedrals and chivalry, and a dark time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world plunged into a chaos of war, fear and the Plague. Barbara Tuchman anatomizes the century, revealing both the great rhythms of history and the grain and texture of domestic life as it was lived.

A distant mirror the calamitous 14th century

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. However, Tuchman's scope is not limited to political and religious events. She begins with a discussion of the Little Ice Age , a change in climate that reduced average temperatures in Europe well into the midth century, and describes the lives of all social classes, including nobility, clergy, and peasantry. Much of the narrative is woven around the life of the French nobleman Enguerrand de Coucy. Tuchman chose him as a central figure partly because his life spanned much of the 14th century, from to A Distant Mirror received much popular acclaim. A reviewer in History Today described it as an enthralling work full of "vivid pen-portraits".

As usual, the author has done extensive research and although it is often difficult to keep all the players straight, it offers a fascinating panoply of a time when "knighthood was in flower".

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.

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

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. The result is an astonishing reflection of medieval Europe, a historical tour de force.

Effective communication ppt free download

With the Papacy removed to Avignon, Rome fell into decay. Matt Brady. I hadn't looked at the courtly love phenomenon that way before - and whilst it is an interesting theory, I wonder what counter-evidence is omitted: there are always some mentions of love marriages in medieval literature. The claim of the Church to spiritual leadership could never be made wholly credible to all its communicants when it was founded in material wealth. She carefully crafts pictures of the everyday lives of those at every level of society. Content rating, PG for all the death, destruction, blood and disease. It is a fun book, both pacey and interesting and certainly a good read, but falls a little short for me. Mankind was not improved by the message. 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. Coucy having been unwisely called to his attention, he decided to make it an example of superior values. Toggle limited content width. Parts of the book are pure overview, touching on what it was like to live during the 14th Century. War between England and France was another key conflict of the fourteenth century. They returned home in humiliation, an appropriate end to their mythical prowess and a disastrous century.

Jump to ratings and reviews.

If Isabella were alive now, one can only assume she'd be a very big deal on Instagram. Thereafter, outbreaks recurred regularly. Barbara Tuchman anatomizes the century, revealing both the great rhythms of history and the grain and texture of domestic life as it was lived. However, Tuchman's scope is not limited to political and religious events. But it's not so much Tuchman's command of language that draws you in as her infectious enchantment with her subject: the period of Western European history beginning with the Black Death of and ending with the fall of the Byzantine Empire in the early s, all as seen through the life of a single French nobleman. Or try this description of the food at a sumptuous wedding: The meats and fish, all gilded, paired suckling pigs with crabs, hares with pike, a whole calf with trout, quails and partridges with more trout, ducks and herons with carp, beef and capons with sturgeon, veal and capons with carp in lemon sauce, beef pies and cheese with eel pies, meat aspic with fish aspic, meat galantines with lamprey, and among the remaining courses, roasted kid, venison, peacocks with cabbage, French beans and pickled ox-tongue, junkets and cheese, cherries and other fruit. There's an entire chapter on the Holy Roman Emperor's visit--the dinners, plays, etc. One of the finest examples of top-notch historical writing and one that ought to be read by anyone interested in this calamitous time. Really, this should be a book I rave about. This is the earliest history book I've encountered which, although its topic is an era, centres itself around the life of an individual who lived successfully in that time. A pessimism ensued which would last into the next century. At first, it felt like one of those books where the author seems to run out of steam or interest or resources, and just wraps up halfway through. I think Eric is one of the most thoughtful and best reviewers on this site. About the author.