74th book of 2020: Marches of Folly.
The 14th century in Western Europe really drives home the way other civilizations can look down upon western culture.
Kingdoms were little more than bickering nobility that scarcely had power outside their own castles. Military campaigns were little more than extended farces, achieving no military objectives. Such campaigns, however, did succeed in pillaging the countryside. Plague was a recurring and devastating phenomenon. Religion was dogmatic and an everyday source of strife. Chivalry was rarely followed, and even when followed, led to disastrous results. Peasants rose up, and were cut down by knights. Military campaigns were planned, only to be blown off course by bickering nobility, poor winds, or the end of the season.
It’s tough to think of any broad sweep of history during this time, as the way Tuchman describes it, there was more of a slosh that led to very little in the way of meaningful results. Many of the plots felt like echoes of ‘A Feast for Crows’ and pictures of every day life were better described in ‘Doomsday Book’. I kept wishing for a more zoomed out view of the overall narrative, giving me some sense of how the hundred years war was divided into three sections with truces in between, but the book proceeded as a series of ineffectual campaigns, an interesting ‘2nd gear’ of history cruising through a time that maybe is better forgotten.