bowienerd_82 's review for:

5.0

I don't know which stood out to me more: Barbara Tuchman's fantastic prose style, or the absolute insanity that made up the European 14th Century.

My new catchphrase is, "At least it's not the 14th century!" because damn: that shit was WACK. The Black Death, the 100 Years War, famine, flood, a mini ice age, constant brigandage, and a papal schism are only some of the more outstanding disasters of the time. Tuchman apparently started out wondering how the plague affected the population at the time, but realized there was so much terrible awfulness going on in the 1300s, she couldn't isolate the fallout of the plague from everything else.

She made an excellent choice in having a central figure to work from, and picked Enguerrand VII de Coucy, who lived through much of the insanity, and died just before the century's end. He provided an anchor for the narrative, and as nobles of the time go, was somewhat less despicable than average.

This is a very engaging, well-written book, and a good one to read in troubled times, because it reminds us: things could be worse. Much, much worse.