A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

Another fine work by Barbara Tuchman. If she wrote it, if you love historical nonfiction, you'll love the read.

The title says it all. People have not changed much as a group in 600 years. The Black Death is hard to believe. Entire families and towns wiped out. Bodies put in deep holes then covered by some dirt and then more bodies like making lasagna, a graphic I will never forget. Technology has changed what we can do but not why we do it. Fighting each other is not rare, in fact it seems to be the norm. With perspective obtained over longer than lifetimes, there is still a chance that we will evolve into something better. The 4 for narration is simply that narrators should not have accents that make it harder to understand what is being said, particularly fast paced narrations.

Exceptional book and excellent narration; an indispensable key to the past!

It takes a while to adjust to the narrators fast pace and the huge amount of information, but it is worth the effort. It's one of those that should be listened to over a long period of time, in pieces. The emphasis is on French history but its a vast tale of a time that shaped the world.