A Distant Mirror

I am grabbing another random book from my bookshelf....A Distant Mirror, by Barbara Tuchman is one of my favorites. I read it about 5 years ago. Many Tuchman fans pooh pooh this book. They call it long and dragged out, which it is, however I have not read an account which better relays how much things sucked in 14th century France. Between the plague and constant losses in battle ending with total defeat to the Muslims at Nicopolis, the schism, etc... nothing about the century seems worthy. Yet, at the same time, people still seem to progress. It gives one hope that we would still survive and progress even after an all out nuclear war.

The military exploits in the 14th century also reinforce the idea that strategy in war in the middle ages simply did not exist. There was no strategy. Only tactics and bad tactics at best. Its amazing that no one ever bothered to read up on their ancient texts. The Europeans had to wait until the 1600s before anyone (Gustavus) thought that strategy mattered.