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5th out of 602 books
—
709 voters
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
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.
Barbara Tuchman anatomizes the century, revealing both the great rhythms of history and the grain and texture of domestic life as it was lived.
Paperback, 677 pages
Published
July 12th 1987
by Ballantine Books
(first published September 21st 1978)
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This book is the reason I majored in history.
I know it sounds...odd...but until I read this book, I felt like I was weird because I liked history--hard core, down and dirty, obscure and addictive, history.
Whenever I researched women and history, their contributions were always sidelined, and I don't just mean the way most text books write about women rulers as curiousities or give a quick nod to Molly Pitcher and the like. I also mean women historians. So many of them were researching how histor...more
I know it sounds...odd...but until I read this book, I felt like I was weird because I liked history--hard core, down and dirty, obscure and addictive, history.
Whenever I researched women and history, their contributions were always sidelined, and I don't just mean the way most text books write about women rulers as curiousities or give a quick nod to Molly Pitcher and the like. I also mean women historians. So many of them were researching how histor...more
I read a little more than half of this a couple of years ago and stopped. This time I read it all, for the discussion of my local book group. I really liked it--I've never NOT liked a Tuchman book. 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. There exist references to him in contemporary works but never more than a figure...more
12 likes · like · see review
Feb 10, 2013
Lisa (Harmonybites)
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
History Buffs
Recommended to Lisa (Harmonybites) by:
The Ultimate Reading List - History
I first gave this massive doorstop book a try in my teens, and the immense detail, I think, is what defeated me. I remember finding it dry and tedious (a complaint echoed in the few negative reviews.) The book's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness--its density. This is an intensely rich and detailed account of "the Calamitous 14th Century" in Europe.
In the Foreword Tuchman wrote she wanted to approach the story through the frame of a single life. She didn't want to choose royalty, a...more
In the Foreword Tuchman wrote she wanted to approach the story through the frame of a single life. She didn't want to choose royalty, a...more
4 likes · like · see review
Just got a nice hardbound copy of this for Christmas, so I'm set to read it again ...
My dad is a Barbara Tuchman fan, so I grew up around this book. As a small child, I used to ponder with interest the scary cover art, which shows the arrival of the Forth Horseman of the Apocalypse ("and his name was death" for you Johnny Cash fans). I finally read the book when I was in high school, and I have reread it several times since. It is a perfect example of good history writing - absolutely engaging a...more
My dad is a Barbara Tuchman fan, so I grew up around this book. As a small child, I used to ponder with interest the scary cover art, which shows the arrival of the Forth Horseman of the Apocalypse ("and his name was death" for you Johnny Cash fans). I finally read the book when I was in high school, and I have reread it several times since. It is a perfect example of good history writing - absolutely engaging a...more
7 likes · like · see review
I'm not quite sure how I came to read this strange and unwieldy book. It just kept popping up in my sights. For a while now, I've had a boyish fascination with the Middle Ages, intensified by a couple of years spent studying Old English in grad school, and nursed along since then with occasional books about the Black Death, the Crusades, castle building, and whatever else seemed interesting to me. Most of what I've read has been deeply thought-provoking, on the one hand, if somewhat tiresome to...more
18 likes · like · see review
Dense with detail, A Distant Mirror offers a shocking picture of life in 14th-century Europe including endless warfare, crusades, burdensome taxing of the lower classes, public punishment as a form of entertainment, highway robbers, and recurring plague. Tuchman weaves the history loosely around the life of a French nobleman but her view is broad and her knowledge of the era seemingly boundless. It's no reflection on Tuchman (I thought her scholarly achievement was amazing) but I am relieved to...more
I still remember reading this book when it first was published. It is another readable and accessible history by that great non-academic historian Barbara Tuchman. I first encountered her work when I read The Proud Tower so my expectations were high. That they were exceeded suggests that this is a work to which I should return as I seldom do for non-fiction. In this ambitious book she explores the tragedy, political intrigue and occasional dark comedy that surround the infestation of the Black P...more
Got turned on to the book by my son, who's been listening to a recorded version. Excellent look at life and times of European 14th century. Though it focuses on the later century (from after the plague years of 1348-50) through the life of Enguerrand de Coucy (1340-1397), the last of a family going back several centuries, there's lots of background and secondary information covered.
The "mirror" of the title is intended to reference how the author feels that the 14th century somehow has cognates...more
The "mirror" of the title is intended to reference how the author feels that the 14th century somehow has cognates...more
A must for anyone interested in the Middle Ages, and, in particular, chivalry. While it is largely focused on France in the second half of the 14th Century, and, admittedly, not quite on same level as "The Proud Tower", it is a very good survey of the complex society which laid the foundation for so much of what Western Civilization is today.
A particularly delightful element of the book is the horror and absurdity that chivalry was in practice.
For anyone not specifically interested in the Late M...more
A particularly delightful element of the book is the horror and absurdity that chivalry was in practice.
For anyone not specifically interested in the Late M...more
Mar 29, 2008
+Chaz
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Someone interested in history and Europe
Recommended to +Chaz by:
While reading a book of a priest who lived in 13 Cen. Pyrenees M
r If you want to get a good understanding of 14 Century Europe this is a book for you. It gets a little long at times but if you stick with it you'll get a different perspective of the crusades, the church, the killing and disease (Black Death) that swept the lands of Europe during this time. Tuchman did her homework and wrote as it was. I was really impressed how she described how Coucy and others were imprisoned during the crusades. However, a lot of these people were just pigs. Shocking but i...more
This book gets more relevant as time goes on - as Tuchman's examination shows, the 14th century really was a mirror for our own times in many ways. Disease is becoming a greater factor in geopolitics, with malaria and HIV changing history, and threatens to devastate world civilization if avian flu or another pandemic gets out of control; in the post-Cold-War era, more and more of the world is lapsing into feudalized failed-state status. I wish Tuchman was still with us - it would be fascinating...more
A Distant Mirror / 9780307793690
I selected this book for a book club discussion, not realizing that it's ~700 pages long rather than ~400 pages long. Whoops! However, this is a completely awesome book and everyone had a ball reading and discussing it, even if several members weren't able to finish on time, and I recommend it highly as a fun and fascinating, as well as wonderfully researched and sourced, look into 14th century culture.
"A Distant Mirror" is a look at the 14th century and follows...more
I selected this book for a book club discussion, not realizing that it's ~700 pages long rather than ~400 pages long. Whoops! However, this is a completely awesome book and everyone had a ball reading and discussing it, even if several members weren't able to finish on time, and I recommend it highly as a fun and fascinating, as well as wonderfully researched and sourced, look into 14th century culture.
"A Distant Mirror" is a look at the 14th century and follows...more
I enjoyed A Distant Mirror, particularly the way its wealth of detail and narrative prose immersed me in 14th Century life. As the title implies, reading about a time that is both very different and very similar to the present inspires some interesting reflections on human nature. While the western world certainly has come a long way, it seems that there are some aspects of human behavior (greed, politicking, impulsiveness, violence) that will always be with us at a macro and a micro level. Tuch...more
This is the one good thing I read in my Game if Thrones withdrawal. It's a rigorous and readable history of what must have been one of the lowest points in human history- the 14th century in Europe. The endless war between France and England is copiously documented, and I skimmed quite a few of the battles in favor of it's equally copiously documented social history, which this book does an especially good job of making real. People in 14th century Europe seem almost unrecognizable as human. For...more
I didn't actually finish this book. I was trying to be stubborn and read all of it even though I only kind of liked it, but I got tired of reading it and finally returned it to the library. There were parts of it that were interesting. There were also parts of it that were gross. But I don't suppose that is entirely the fault of the author, since she is only reporting things that actually happened.
I was interested in the parts about the black death and the schism in the catholic church. But I fi...more
I was interested in the parts about the black death and the schism in the catholic church. But I fi...more
One of my favorite books ever. This book describes the 14th century in Europe. It is an apocalyptic time of plague, war, lawlessness and religious breakdown. It is also a time of great pageantry and massive excess. The descriptions of some of the royal feasts are simply amazing, given the poverty of the peasants who had to support them. The book describes knights, great battles, crusades against the infidel, and the chivalric code. It describes frequent peasant uprisings against excessive taxati...more
Tuchman published this book in 1978. In her preface she makes clear that she is interested in comparing the 14th century in Europe - a time of war, disease, social and economic dislocation, and general demoralization - with the two 20th century decades before the book’s publication. One could legitimately argue that the same issues apply during the first eleven years of the 21st century. Tuchman’s method is to use an actual French nobleman, Enguerrand de Coucy VII, as an exemplar whom she then f...more
4 likes · like · see review
One of the best histories there is. I started this long ago, came back to it recently and devoured it. Took me four weeks, because the prose is so dense and I want to understand EVERYTHING.
Two major things have changed since my last try at this book:
1. I've been to a few of the places they're talking about
2. I have a regular internet connection now.
Let me tell you, being able to wiki these historical figures is the single best guard against all those ancient names running together. This book is...more
Two major things have changed since my last try at this book:
1. I've been to a few of the places they're talking about
2. I have a regular internet connection now.
Let me tell you, being able to wiki these historical figures is the single best guard against all those ancient names running together. This book is...more
A friend of mine, knowing my love for the Middle Ages, suggested I read this book. This is an excellent and very thorough book on the 14th century. The Middle Ages is a major part of the High School history curriculum in France, but I still discovered many things here I had never heard about the Middle Ages.
Tuchman had a genius idea by weaving her study around the character of Enguerrand de Coucy (1340-1397). He is a central character in the national history of the time, and with his strategical...more
Tuchman had a genius idea by weaving her study around the character of Enguerrand de Coucy (1340-1397). He is a central character in the national history of the time, and with his strategical...more
Let me be clear: this is an amazingly well researched book. However, as a lay person with a strong but passing interest in world history, it was more detail than I could slog through.
I made it just past the chapter on the Black Plague and had to stop (about 100 pages in). Tuchman clearly knows almost everything there is to know about 14th century Europe. Unfortunately for this reader, she imparts way to much in the text. I am a fairly fast reader, but was slowed down considerably by the rich (te...more
I made it just past the chapter on the Black Plague and had to stop (about 100 pages in). Tuchman clearly knows almost everything there is to know about 14th century Europe. Unfortunately for this reader, she imparts way to much in the text. I am a fairly fast reader, but was slowed down considerably by the rich (te...more
Often, it is difficult for us to put ourselves into the frame of mind of a different era: even just a decade before we were born--or, for that matter, precisely when we were born--can be a difficult imaginative exercise. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman does an excellent job of helping the modern reader understand not only what happened 600-700 years ago in Europe at the end of the Medieval period but also to understand better the profound differences in the way t...more
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[The core of my comments start in the third paragraph, for those of you uninterested in circumstantial details.:]
I stared reading this book in July of 2009. I was intrigued by the authors premise of examining an entire century through the experience of one man whom she, through her research, found to have been involved with most of the major events of the last half of that century. What most intrigued me was the fact that I had never heard of Enguerrand de Coucy VII Before. So I dug into this ma...more
I stared reading this book in July of 2009. I was intrigued by the authors premise of examining an entire century through the experience of one man whom she, through her research, found to have been involved with most of the major events of the last half of that century. What most intrigued me was the fact that I had never heard of Enguerrand de Coucy VII Before. So I dug into this ma...more
I have been recommended this book by many of my good reads friends, and so I’ve read it. My friend Eric’s review says simply, “Normally, I have always enjoyed Barbara Tuchman's books, but this one, while very interesting, I felt I had to struggle a bit”.
This is a very uncharacteristic review by Eric. I think Eric is one of the most thoughtful and best reviewers on this site. His reviews generally give valuable insights into a book and unfortunately far too often have me adding books to my ‘to re...more
This is a very uncharacteristic review by Eric. I think Eric is one of the most thoughtful and best reviewers on this site. His reviews generally give valuable insights into a book and unfortunately far too often have me adding books to my ‘to re...more
6 likes · like · see review
Mar 23, 2013
Erik Graff
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Tuchman fans
Recommended to Erik by:
no one
Shelves:
history
I acquired and read this book because I'd liked Tuchman since reading her The Proud Tower and The Guns of August in high school. This one was a bit of a disappointment though. Why, I'm not sure. Usually histories which span from the world-historical to the intimate and personal appeal to me, especially when written by a talented writer like she is. Perhaps I was distracted because my wife had recently left, leaving me in a somewhat dreamlike state for some time.
2 likes · like · see review
I had almost forgotten about this book. It was the late 70s when it sat on my book shelf. Just looking at the cover makes me feel young again. Sorry, I digress. I saw it on someone's Goodreads reviews. This was the first history book I voluntarily read (not required reading for a class) and I loved it and fell in love with History. Okay, I was already in love with history but this book reaffirmed that love. Seeing it here was like seeing an old friend.
I'd always heard this book was "the gold standard" for history books on the Middle Ages. It's been on my radar for years, and for some reason, it kept getting backburnered. Now that I've gone through it, I can honest say that it's earned the high praise. As an overview of a single century, it provides both a microcosm of the Middle Ages as a whole and a fascinating storyscape of the events that defined the 14th century. There is nothing in this book that's overly difficult to consume, making it...more
I read this book some time during the late 1980s and it was the first of Barbara's books to pass through my hands. Despite having a life-long love of history (except for a three year period from first year of high school to third year - bad teachers make make students) I wasn't that knowledgeable about the 14th century. Ms Tuchman changed all of that. Her writing is clear, well-researched and accessible. Most books on that period that you get are written by professors from one university or anot...more
It took me a long time to read this book, because it is so dense with information. Even though I have a master's degree in European History and taught it for a while, there were so many things in this book that I didn't know. This book should be a foundation for understanding the world that went before us. Tuchman does an incredible job in providing an eagle eye view of one individual over the course of the 14th century while incorporating him into French politics, religious issues, the economy,...more
I'm going to go ahead and count this as "read," even though I only read 300 pages of it, which was about half. I just don't feel like I really need to read any more...I got a pretty good sense of Western Europe in the 14th Century, I feel like I know the general cast of characters, I have a much better sense about why the Hundred Years War happened and the general arc of the first half of that war. But as the book progressed, I just got more and more confused. Tuchman doesn't seem to have had a...more
A wonderfully detailed book about the 14th Century in Europe that included chivalry, castles, and crusades, but also the chaos of the Hundred Years War, the Black Death, the Black Prince, the flagellants, and the Great Schism. In her investigation of the 14th Century, Tuchman follows the life of Enguerrand de Coucy and uses his career as a French knight to organize her explanations of the politics of the age. Life was not easy in the 14th Century, especially if you were not part of the ruling cl...more
Barbara Wertheim Tuchman was an American self-trained historian and author. She became best known for The Guns of August, a history of the prelude and first month of World War I.
As an author, Tuchman focused on producing popular history. Her clear, dramatic storytelling covered topics as diverse as the 14th century and World War I, and sold millions of copies.
More about Barbara W. Tuchman...
As an author, Tuchman focused on producing popular history. Her clear, dramatic storytelling covered topics as diverse as the 14th century and World War I, and sold millions of copies.
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“Human beings of any age need to approve of themselves; the bad times in history come when they cannot.”
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10 people liked it
“When the gap between ideal and real becomes too wide, the system breaks down.”
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10 people liked it
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Nov 30, 2012 10:24pm