Rating: 
Summary: They didn't know 'twas pivot between medieval and modern
Review: This is one of the best histories I've ever read. Ms. Tuchman was a stellar historian with the research skills to match. More to the point, she took the intensive layman-friendly time and effort to communicate to the general readership this vastly informative and even fun historical introduction, overview, and royal's-eye-view (more on that later) of the Bubonic Fearful Fourteenth, when most of Civilization (for them, Western Europe) was quite sure the end was at hand. But, just like us, they tried to carry on as best they could. To call Tuchman just an "historian" is wrong if that limits our understanding of her career; she could not have written A DISTANT MIRROR without a thorough grounding in sociology, economics, antiquarianism, oral history of course, and even outside disciplines like accounting and the use of legal documents. As far as this reviewer knows, nobody's done it better! Tuchman was of the school of intellectuals who believed in writing for the laypeople, at least sometimes. (Would there were more today. ;) ) Some histories are inherently interesting (British Reforma-tion, African slave trade, the World Wars), but I had been taught under the old school; namely, that after Rome Collapsed the Dark Ages set in, redeemed only by the Italian Renaissance. The 1300s were no barrel of laughs, but the human spirit endured (trite, but accurate) and the era is not easily stereotyped. Whatever their station, this book's inhabitants are a mixture of the brutish, sullen, mean, wretched, politically disempowered, yet in some ways surprisingly smart, enlightened, canny and with a "Waltons" type extended family security. Civilization had moved just a tiny, almost imperceptible notch beyond our view of the Dark Ages oaf in burlap who blindly obeyed everything he was told, sacred and secular, even if contradictory. We have to squint really hard to see anything in that foggy historical and cultural mirror that resembles us pre-Chaucher, but Tuchman puls it off brilliantly and in a different society, too. Tuchman gave me "graduate" insight in spite of my "general-track" background, so I'm very grateful. So much depends on context. Did everyone drop work and rush to church all day? Get real: hoe that wheat or starve. Lacking mechanical clocks, on a typically overcast W. Eur. day, only the local church steeple accurately chimed the hours as a by-product of announcing matins, lauds, etc. In general our populace are different; but judge for yourselves whether their habits are common-sense, pragmatic but strange to us, or just plain weird! Presentation is key: Tuchman avoids the traditional "big man" school of historicism (that kind of history is writ about the pertinent big shots: Talleyrand, Chairman Mao, whoever). A DISTANT MIRROR isn't truly a grass-roots social history. Even though peasants far outnumbered merchants, there was no bourgeoisie to speak the literate lords left behind the best historical documentation. Tuchman limits her research area to a blah corner of northern France (if you're tired of seeing tourists, visit the region). Her lead character is nobility (had to be, they were most of the literates and as Tuchman explains, this one in particular threw off lots of paperwork as lord and liege, a treasure trove. In essence, Tuchman is turning away from the distractions, glam-by-deceit and geometric increase in documents -- say, Manhattan; she chooses instead a sociologically normal and not overly complex representation of the whole -- like Muncie, IN, pet of sociologists now for 80 years. Tuchman turns this kind of model to her advantage: one 14th-Century ducal holdout against subsumation by greater powers becomes a metonymy for all of France, indeed all of what then would probably been called "Christendom," or perhaps the "Holy Roman Empire." The society she chronicles is stratified, but less so than a simple scheme of peasant/merchant/cleric/nobility might suggest. Our Ruler Himself is no Big Man; he's sort of a B- sovereign who seemed most of the time to enjoy literal wars against the same or higher nobility trying to poach his turf as opposed to placating the peasants at home. (Not a word more, smalling.) He's a very human person and, adjusting for 1300 statecraft, people may love him or hate him or both. With its meticulous research, felicitous prose, tapestried, user-friendly structure and an almost Homeric intensity of storytelling that's hard to resist, I give A DISTANT MIRROR the highest commendation. Truly, with Tuchman, one word can equal a thousand pictures, but the book has more than an adequate amount of B&W photos and drawings. No wonder it's still in print and no wonder so many people like me rush to read her other works such as THE PROUD TOWER.
Rating:
Summary: History as a living story - better than fiction.
Review: Tuchman tells history's stories like novels. This book would make anyone interested in Medieval History.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent and readable
Review: When I came to this book, I was mainly interested in the chapter on the Black Death, which I was researching at the time. I was interested in researching the history of microbial disease and epidemics, and Tuchman's chapter turned out to be an excellent place to start on this subject. Since it's the only chapter in the book I've read, I'll confine my comments to that. There are several book-length treatments of the subject now, but I read the chapter in Tuchman's book to get a good introduction and overview of these events before reading the other, more specialized books. This doesn't mean the chapter was light reading. On the contrary, Tuchman packs a great deal of good and detailed information about the Black Death into this one chapter, dramatically chronicling and evoking the terror and horror of this plague as it swept across Europe. The story of the Black Death's ravages in Europe makes for perhaps the most dramatically morbid and gruesome historical tale of all time, with 60-70 million dead from the disease, and I enjoyed reading Tuchman's excellent account on the subject. After this, I was ready to go on to more serious researches.
Rating: 
Summary: Chaos theory, unexplained
Review: Whenever I meet someone who enjoys reading history, this is the book I always seem to recommend first (I love reading history). It is so beautifully written. It has the drama and intrigue of a novel, yet Barbara Tuchman, as she notes in her book Practicing History, always worked from primary resources. This work of history is accurate. And all of her books are great: Guns of August, Proud Tower, Zimmerman Telegram, Stillwell, to name a few. A Distant Mirror stands out, in my opinion, because it vividly describes how difficult, how different and, indeed how "calamitous" Western Civilization was in the 14th century. From reading this book, I am more thankful to live today and not then. Yet, how exhilirating it was to read and really feel how it was. I defy anyone who starts it to put it down easily.
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite books of all time
Review: Whenever I meet someone who enjoys reading history, this is the book I always seem to recommend first (I love reading history). It is so beautifully written. It has the drama and intrigue of a novel, yet Barbara Tuchman, as she notes in her book Practicing History, always worked from primary resources. This work of history is accurate. And all of her books are great: Guns of August, Proud Tower, Zimmerman Telegram, Stillwell, to name a few. A Distant Mirror stands out, in my opinion, because it vividly describes how difficult, how different and, indeed how "calamitous" Western Civilization was in the 14th century. From reading this book, I am more thankful to live today and not then. Yet, how exhilirating it was to read and really feel how it was. I defy anyone who starts it to put it down easily.
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