Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.06 AVERAGE
4.06 AVERAGE
A little too much battle history for my personal taste, but very well written and researched historical nonfiction.
Three stars for the work necessary to write an engagingly-written narrative. As a history, however, it gives little coherence to fourteenth century Europe as a whole. Its greatest problem, though, lies in the way it essentializes the past as incomprehensibly other, rather like Said's category of Orientalism does to the East. There is little to no attempt to understand the motivations of the main characters as people like you and me. The result is to reify the late middle ages as an entity that can be studied and depicted in the service of an imperial modernity. A kind of history, to be sure, but not one I find helpful.
A terrifically told tale of a terrible, terrible time.
Not a bad book at all. Very informative. I've always been fascinated with the Medieval era so this was a good read for that. I especially enjoyed learning more about the black plague.
informative
slow-paced
This book was a haul! I enjoyed Ms. Tuchman's writing but being immersed in 14th century France means a lot of names, connections, and places that you've likely never heard before.
I learned a _ton_ about the late middle ages from this book, but it took me a long time to finish; I'd recommend only diving in if you're ready to give it a real effort, but it will pay you back as long as you bring your imagination to it and try to get a sense of what an alien time was like.
I learned a _ton_ about the late middle ages from this book, but it took me a long time to finish; I'd recommend only diving in if you're ready to give it a real effort, but it will pay you back as long as you bring your imagination to it and try to get a sense of what an alien time was like.
Beautifully written and I learnt a lot, particularly about very dumb French nobles.
informative
slow-paced
Barbara Tuchman is an author for whom topic is utterly irrelevant, but chose to give life to tumultuous 14th century France and resurrect Enguerrand de Coucy, a notable French nobleman of the era, in order to spin around him a swirling vignette of Catholic Schism, the 100 years war, The Black Death, all interlaced with striking observations and wrapped up in poignant and musical prose. If she had written phone books for a living they would undoubtedly be considered 20th century literature.
informative
slow-paced