seanquistador 's review for:

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W. Tuchman

5.0

---

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.