A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

xx, 677 pp. Map illustrated endpapers. "Anyone who has read The Guns of August or Stilwell and the American Experience in China, knows that Barbara Tuchman was one of the most gifted American writers of this century. Her subject was history, but her profiles of great men and great events are drawn with such power that reading Tuchman becomes a riveting experience In A Distant Mirror, Barbara Tuchman illuminates the Dark Ages. Her description of medieval daily life, the role of the church, the influence of the Great Plagues, and the social and political conventions that make this period of history so engrossing, are carefully woven into an integrated narrative that sweeps the reader along. I am a particular devotee of medieval and pre Renaissance music, so Barbara Tuchman's brilliant analysis of this period has special meaning for me - and I hope for many others." CONTENTS: Maps and Illustrations; Foreword; "I Am the Sire de Coucy": The Dynasty; Born to Woe: The Century; Youth and Chivalry; War; "This Is the End of the World": The Black Death; The Battle of Poitiers; Decapitated France: The Bourgeois Rising and the Jacquerie; Hostage in England; Enguerrand and Isabella; Sons of Iniquity; The Gilded Shroud; Double Allegiance; Coucy's War; England's Turmoil; The Emperor in Paris; The Papal Schism; Coucy's Rise; The Worms of the Earth Against the Lions; The Lure of Italy; A Second Norman Conquest; The Fiction Cracks; The Siege of Barbary; In a Dark Wood; Danse Macabre; Lost Opportunity; Nicopolis; Hung Be the Heavens with Black; Epilogue; Bibliography; Reference Notes; Index.