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4.06 AVERAGE
4.06 AVERAGE
This book was far too detailed and convoluted. If there's an abridged version, I'd recommend that.
This was an era in history I knew very little about and what I did know was through the medium of Hollywood so... yeah not exactly a good source.
I now know a lot more and wonder why they don't have more books and movies that take things directly from this era. There was a ton of interesting lives and experiences.
I now know a lot more and wonder why they don't have more books and movies that take things directly from this era. There was a ton of interesting lives and experiences.
I gave this three stars because, as one might imagine, it was a lot of work to finish. This is a long, long book about Europe in the 14th century. As a result, there are a lot of names and places to keep straight, and it doesn't help that everyone is named the same thing: John the II, the III, the IV. There are places where it flies right by, but you have to want to finish it.
Tuchman uses the device of choosing one man and using his life to illustrate the events and way of life of many people in the 14th century. In fact, the "way of life" parts were my favorite. I loved reading about the kinds of food people ate, the clothes they wore, their church attendance, their life spans; Tuchman gives space to both the peasants and the nobles and shows how they were different.
Tuchman uses the device of choosing one man and using his life to illustrate the events and way of life of many people in the 14th century. In fact, the "way of life" parts were my favorite. I loved reading about the kinds of food people ate, the clothes they wore, their church attendance, their life spans; Tuchman gives space to both the peasants and the nobles and shows how they were different.
This book gives an overview of the culture and most significant historical events of that period in Medieval Europe through the lens of a specific French nobleman's life. The author, Barbara Tuchman, is one of the most lauded historical writers around so if you like her style you could pick up some of her other work too.
informative
slow-paced
challenging
informative
slow-paced
I rarely, if ever, complain about too much information in a history book.... but this one definitely had too much. It was, it pains me to say, really boring in places.
informative
slow-paced
adventurous
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Despite some instances of judgment according to modern standards, I found Tuchman’s take on the decline of the Middle Ages a great read. She not only illuminated a period of history that has seemed too vague to me until now, she weaved the events of the period in a way that made the medieval-modern transition comprehensible. There is a habit of moralizing and criticizing aspects of the medieval era from a modern point of view that I’ve always found pointless since we’re talking about a totally different period in human history with different values and understandings. Had these been avoided, I might’ve given the book a full 5 stars, but then again this is popular history and that genre requires engaging the reader in different ways. Despite that, Tuchman’s Distant Mirror is very much worth the read.