The fourteenth century reflects two contradictory images: on the one hand, a glittering age of crusades, cathedrals, and chivalry; on the other, a world plunged into chaos and spiritual agony. 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. Granting her subjects their loyalties, treacheries, and guilty passions, Tuchman re-creates the lives of proud cardinals, university scholars, grocers and clerks, saints and mystics, lawyers and mercenaries, and, dominating all, the knight—in all his valor and “furious follies,” a “terrible worm in an iron cocoon.”
B yond a good read. This should be mandatory for getting out of highschool.
ReplyDeletePublished in 1978, one of the books I lost in the fire twenty years ago.
ReplyDeleteProbably should reread.
I love this book and Tuchman generally.
ReplyDelete600 years later and it sounds like not a single thing has changed.
ReplyDeleteTechnology has changed but little else has.
ReplyDeleteI read that and "The Guns of August" this year. Both amazingly well-written.
ReplyDeleteI've probably read it 4 or 5 times. Great book. Most of Tuchman's work is just as readable. Try her book on Stilwell and the American experience in China.
ReplyDeleteIf only we had someone writing like her today
ReplyDeleteBarbara is a treasure. A historian that makes what can often be a dry subject seem like a Saturday afternoon matinee. You can't wait to find out what comes next. All of her books are as interesting as they are completely unrelated to each other. She takes a slice of time and expounds on all the intertwined aspects of it down to the most intimate details all while weaving an incredibly detailed tapestry of our past. If you think today's society is batshit crazy - well, we've got nothing on the inhabitants of the 14th century.
ReplyDeleteEveryone of her books is a must read IMHO.
ReplyDelete