≫ Libro Gratis The March of Folly From Troy to Vietnam Barbara W Tuchman 9780345308238 Books

The March of Folly From Troy to Vietnam Barbara W Tuchman 9780345308238 Books

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The March of Folly From Troy to Vietnam Barbara W Tuchman 9780345308238 Books

Possibly the best of Barbara Tuchman's award winning and other excellent books. Her sweep of history anchored in detailed "stories" is incredible. Required reading to understand that history does repeat itself as "follies" repeatedly occur even in the post Vietnam period like 2017. If she were alive today, she would have us reexamining our decades of war in Iraq & Afghanistan as well as the Trump presidency.


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The March of Folly From Troy to Vietnam Barbara W Tuchman 9780345308238 Books Reviews

I'm not a history expert - just barely a history buff. However, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. An easy and very entertaining read, despite it's length, that delves into the 14th century in great detail. I was finished long before I wanted to be. My only problem (and it is my problem, not the author's) is keeping track of the relationships between all the characters (but then again, I have trouble keeping track of my own extended family). Before reading this book, I would sometimes daydream about if I were a king in a similar era, the changes I would make to rid the land of excessive taxation, rampant corruption, unsanitary living, lack of general education, and other major issues. Turns out the governments of that time tried to solve the same issues but with little or no success -- I suppose I'm a bit naïve. I was surprised, too, on just what 'chivalry' was during that period. Turns out that the noble ideals I had come to believed existed at that time were not reflected in action. I would highly recommend this wonderful book.
I have been trying to plow through this for the last few weeks, and can only read a few pages at a time before my eyes glaze over. English and French history is my key period, though I've mostly focused on the Wars of the Roses and subsequent events up to Napoleon. So I thought this would be an interesting peek at an era I'm not too familiar with. However, I'm a little past halfway, and all of a sudden the author throws in big sections written in present tense, which is jarring; the section on the plague basically just repeats itself over and over, giving statistics and names of villages that were defunct after the plague...I can remember trying to read this when it was first published but didn't really have a memory of it - so I started it again, and failed. I officially gave up this morning and am going to go read something else, more invigorating.
This book is another Barbara Tuchman tour de force, displaying the rich pageant of 14th century France amid the tumult of plague, war, and political destabilization.

14th century France managed to combine possibly the worst of all possible outcomes. After the political and military triumphs of Philip the Fair (IV) in the early years of the century, a lengthy period of dynastic uncertainty continued throughout the period, with only the reign of Charles V to demonstrate rare competence in government.

France, probably more than any other, was a prisoner of chivalry as the Middle Ages waned. This meant that knightly valor overwhelmed simple good sense as demonstrated again and again and again during four spectacular military disasters, Crecy, Poitiers, Nicopolis and Agincourt. In each case the French were overwhelmed by the failure of their own tactics and an inability to understand the need to sacrifice glory, the knight's prerogative for the expediency of developing formations and tactics that could respond to superior English long bows and superior Turkish tactics. The Hundred Years lasted as long as it did due an insistence of the French nobility on fighting as its enemy preferred it to fight, rather than in a way likely to ensure victory.

Tuchman uses the French nobleman Enguerrand de Coucy as the prism to view the century's disasters. His father died at Crecy, he died after Nicopolis in Turkish hands. In between he married a daughter of Edward III, served the realm in diplomatic and military capacities and survived the plague that decimated Europe.

It is appropriate for Tuchman to use a member of the nobility as her "every man" as this is the class that had the greatest impact on French and English history during this period. This impact was not necessarily a positive one, with rebellions and treason being more routine than bathing. Moral guidelines are generally absent with the Catholic Church torn by the spectacle of two, sometimes three, popes during the great schism. While the Kings were sometimes mad, the nobility was generally bad.

This is a marvelous book which I forgot just how good it was, having last picked it up in 1979. The 14th century is a place worth encountering through Tuchman's prose.
The genius of Barbara Tuchman is her ability to bring the past into an immediacy requiring the reader's attention, and to make the concerns of people past relevant to people living today. "A Distant Mirror The Calamitous 14th Century" reanimates Sire de Coucy, the Bourbon kings, and makes palpable the desire of the English crown for territory in France. Following the great plague years, class struggles, still part of us today, are written about with an enlightened approach that makes the reader understand both the perspective of people living in those distant times with the perspective of today, and how much has changed, and, how little, too.
Possibly the best of Barbara Tuchman's award winning and other excellent books. Her sweep of history anchored in detailed "stories" is incredible. Required reading to understand that history does repeat itself as "follies" repeatedly occur even in the post Vietnam period like 2017. If she were alive today, she would have us reexamining our decades of war in Iraq & Afghanistan as well as the Trump presidency.