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Summary: Fascinating and Objective View of the 14th Century
Review: A Distant Mirror is a worthy addition to Barbara Tuchman's reportoire of historical works. She brings to life the events of 14th century Europe and exposes chivalry and the church for what they really were: Corrupt people subjugating the population of Europe. She uses the life of Enguerrand de Coucy as the centerpiece of her treatment of the times. A prominent, but historically obscure noble, Coucy is shown vividly in all his elegance at court and bloodthirstiness in slaughtering peasants who attempted to assert their freedom. No one can come away from this book without seeing the 14th century in human terms. Ms. Tuchman's work, as are all of her books, is a challenging read. Her grammar, although impeccable, is complex and imaginative. Not for the light reader, but fascinating for anyone who wants to learn about history without sugarcoating or nationalistic slanting.
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Summary: A rare jewel in the crown of History
Review: Barbara Tuchman does a masterful job of sifting through reams of medieval manuscripts to create this fascinating portrait of 14th century Europe. First, I had no idea that there was still so much original material for a historian to work with. Second, I didn't realize how much could be gleaned from reading between the lines of these precious documents. Tuchman delves beneath and behind the recorded words to shine a light on the truth of living in that calamitous time. It was a century in which the Black Death and the Hundred Years' War combined to demoralize and radicalize a weakened populace. It was a century in which the pillars of society, both secular and religious, seemed lethally pervaded with corruption and incompetence. It was a time of peasant revolts that prefigured the popular revolutions of the 18th century and a time when the Church's utter lack of spirituality set the stage for the 16th century reformers. Yet it was also a century of crusading heroes and prophetic witnesses, in which national identities were solidifying.
Tuchman focuses on a single figure, previously unknown to me, who found himself at many of the critical events of the century. Le Sire de Coucy, thoroughly a man of his time, exemplified the great strengths of his day and (to a lesser extent) its weaknesses. Proud, noble, courageous, discreet and intelligent, Coucy is the epitome of the knight in shining armor, in a time when the virtues of that calling were more sung about than lived. I came away from "A Distant Mirror" with a great admiration for this previously anonymous "chevalier."
Tuchman calls the 14th century a mirror of the troubled 20th century. The parallels were less clear to me, and this is the sole weakness of the book. We will have to see whether the calamaties of the 20th century (genocidal world wars, global economic disruptions, decolonialism) will set the stage for a wholesale power shift on the part of present-day society.
That said, "A Distant Mirror" is a sparkling jewel of the popular historian's art, bringing to life a time and place that are otherwise known only through myth and romance.
Rating:
Summary: ONE OF TUCHMAN'S BEST
Review: A wonderful bit of historical writing. I am a big Tuchman fan but must admit that her ability to get "history acedemics" all in a snit, adds to my delight in her work. I have always felt that the common, everyday sort of guy, like myself, can glean much more from the so called "popular history writers" than they can from a stack of a thousand PhD rantings which end up filed away in a forgotten cabinet in must university storage room. I highly recommend this one.
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Summary: Living the 14th century
Review: "A Distant Mirror" is a detailed, well written and mostly engrossing political, cultural, religious and social history of Europe in the fourteenth century. It comes as close as any history of the period to imparting a sense of what life was like, at all levels, in western Europe through plagues, wars, and the vicissitudes of everyday living. While the book claims to focus on one life in order to tell the history of the period, it works poorly as biography. The story of Enguerrand de Coucy is more of an excuse for delving into the period and is, in itself, more sideshow than main attraction. This is just as well, for the full cast of characters, kings, princes, lords, popes, cardinals, priests, merchants, farmers, and so on are all so fascinating that the story glides along. At times the book does suffer a little from its verbosity. It could have used a little paring down. Nonetheless as a whole it is a remarkable achievement, and well worth it for anyone interested in European or medieval history.
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Summary: The Lord of Coucy
Review: There are few, if any, historians who have attacked so many different periods with as much zeal - and success - as Tuchman. Having traversed World War One, Palestine, China policy and other realms, she travels to fourteenth century France for an epic narrative of the Hundred Years' War and the Great Plague - loosely formatted around a biography of Edward de Coucy, a great baron of Picardy (and crusader against the Turk). The great players of the time, from the Black Prince to the ineffectual French Kings to the schismatic Papacy to the true villain, the flea-borne bubo, all feature in this rich tale. Perfect for a reader's first foray into late medieval history.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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