Description

Book Synopsis

The fourteenth century was a time of fabled crusades and chivalry, glittering cathedrals and grand castles. It was also a time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world of chaos and the plague.

Here, Barbara Tuchman masterfully reveals the two contradictory images of the age, examining the great rhythms of history and the grain and texture of domestic life as it was lived: what childhood was like; what marriage meant; how money, taxes and war dominated the lives of serf, noble and clergy alike.

Granting her subjects their loyalties, treacheries and guilty passions, Tuchman recreates the lives of proud cardinals, university scholars, grocers and clerks, saints and mystics, lawyers and mercenaries, and, above all, knights. The result is an astonishing reflection of medieval Europe, a historical tour de force.



Trade Review
A beautiful, extraordinary book . . . Tuchman at the top of her powers . . . She has done nothing finer * Wall Street Journal *
Wise, witty, and wonderful . . . a great book, in a great historical tradition * Commentary *
Beautifully written, careful and thorough in its scholarship . . . What Ms. Tuchman does superbly is to tell how it was. . . . No one has ever done this better * New York Review of Books *

A Distant Mirror

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    A Paperback / softback by Barbara Tuchman

    £12.34

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    RRP £12.99 – you save £0.65 (5%)

    Order before 4pm today for delivery by Mon 16 Nov 2026.

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      Book details

      Publisher Penguin Random House Group
      Imprint Penguin Books Ltd
      Published 5 October 2017
      ISBN-13 9780241972977
      978-0241972977
      ISBN-10 0241972973
      Also in:
      History European history: medieval period, middle ages

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      The fourteenth century was a time of fabled crusades and chivalry, glittering cathedrals and grand castles. It was also a time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world of chaos and the plague.

      Here, Barbara Tuchman masterfully reveals the two contradictory images of the age, examining the great rhythms of history and the grain and texture of domestic life as it was lived: what childhood was like; what marriage meant; how money, taxes and war dominated the lives of serf, noble and clergy alike.

      Granting her subjects their loyalties, treacheries and guilty passions, Tuchman recreates the lives of proud cardinals, university scholars, grocers and clerks, saints and mystics, lawyers and mercenaries, and, above all, knights. The result is an astonishing reflection of medieval Europe, a historical tour de force.



      Trade Review
      A beautiful, extraordinary book . . . Tuchman at the top of her powers . . . She has done nothing finer * Wall Street Journal *
      Wise, witty, and wonderful . . . a great book, in a great historical tradition * Commentary *
      Beautifully written, careful and thorough in its scholarship . . . What Ms. Tuchman does superbly is to tell how it was. . . . No one has ever done this better * New York Review of Books *

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