Audio only

A Distant Mirror

The Calamitous 14th CenturyBy Barbara W. TuchmanNarrated by Wanda McCaddon
Length28h 38m

About this audiobook

A “marvelous history”* of medieval Europe, from the bubonic plague and the Papal Schism to the Hundred Years’ War, by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Guns of August *Lawrence Wright, author of The End of October, in The Wall Street Journal The fourteenth century reflects two contradictory images: on the one hand, a glittering time of crusades and castles, cathedrals and chivalry, and the exquisitely decorated Books of Hours; and on the other, a time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world of chaos and the plague. Barbara Tuchman reveals both the great rhythms of history and the grain and texture of domestic life as it was lived. Here are the guilty passions, loyalties and treacheries, political assassinations, sea battles and sieges, corruption in high places and a yearning for reform, satire and humor, sorcery and demonology, and lust and sadism on the stage. Here are proud cardinals, beggars, feminists, university scholars, grocers, bankers, mercenaries, mystics, lawyers and tax collectors, and, dominating all, the knight in his valor and “furious follies,” a “terrible worm in an iron cocoon.”

Audiobook details

Rating★★★★ 4.2 (89.1K)
Includes Goodreads, LibraryThing, Amazon, StoryGraph
GenreHistory
Length28 hrs 38 mins
Narrated byWanda McCaddon
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateDec 1, 2005
LanguageEnglish

More from Barbara W. Tuchman

A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
Black AF HistoryMichael Harriot15h 43m4.7 (14.6K)$33 · $0.00
The Gulag Archipelago Volume 3Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn21h 56m4.7 (8.9K)$46 · $0.00
Pearl of Great PriceJoseph Smith3h 8m4.7 (7.2K)$1.20 · $0.00
The Happiest Man on EarthEddie Jaku3h 48m4.6 (178K)$7 · $0.00
MotherlandJulia Ioffe17h 52m4.7 (2.5K)$40 · $0.00
Where Cowards Go to DieBenjamin Sledge8h 42m4.7 (351)$20 · $0.00
RevolutionariesSanjeev Sanyal11h 23m4.6 (2.6K)$29 · $0.00
We Crossed a Bridge and It TrembledWendy Pearlman6h4.6 (5.2K)$24 · $0.00
Unbroken Bonds of BattleJohnny Joey Jones8h 31m4.6 (2.6K)$8 · $0.00
The Daughter of AuschwitzTova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant7h 54m4.6 (16.7K)$26 · $0.00
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m4.6 (16.1K)$29 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m4.6 (927)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
BeyondStephen Walker15h 39m4.6 (3.2K)$33 · $0.00
Kings and PawnsHoward Bryant10h 9m4.6 (678)$29 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Jubal Stone: U.S. Marshal: Blood Trail To Hell: A Western Adventure NovelCasey Nash3h 42m4.6 (3.2K)$18 · $0.00
Fall and RiseMitchell Zuckoff17h 23m4.6 (9.8K)$40 · $0.00

You may also like

The Magnificent Century (Annotated)Thomas Bertram Costain16h 8m4.2 (2K)$2 · $0.00
Ancient Greece, Second EditionThomas R. Martin12h 59m4.1 (3.3K)$23
The Art of War in the Middle Ages (378-1515)Charles Oman6h 10m4.0 (674)$1.99 · $0.00
The Civilization of the Middle AgesNorman F. Cantor28h 42m4.2 (4.8K)$35
The Empire and the Papacy, 918-1273T. F. Tout21h 12m4.0 (53)$1 · $0.00
Europe in the Middle AgesIerne L. Plunket14h 37m3.7 (15)$2 · $0.00
The Rise and Fall of Austria or the Habsburg Empire (Annotated)John S. C. Abbott18h 52m4.3 (13)$1.99 · $0.00
Observations on Church and StateJames Frederick Ferrier2h 18m$2 · $0.00
A History of the Roman Empire: From Its Foundation to the Death of Marcus Aurelius (27 B.C. – 180 A.D.) (Summarized Edition)John Bagnell Bury6h 14m$2
Lectures on the constitution and laws of EnglandFrancis Stoughton Sullivan18h 31m$2 · $0.00
A History of EnglandCharles Oman19h 9m3.9 (24)$1 · $0.00
A History of ChinaWolfram Eberhard12h 6m3.6 (177)$1 · $0.00
England under the Angevin Kings (Vol. 1&2) (Annotated)Kate Norgate46h 34m4.3 (11)$1.99 · $0.00
History of the Sasanian Empire (Annotated)George Rawlinson17h 20m3.9 (25)$2 · $0.00
The Catholic MonarchsSantiago Machain6h 24m$21 · $0.00
History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent Discovery (Annotated)H. R. Hall, L. W. King9h 19m3.5 (67)$2 · $0.00
Constantine the Great: The reorganization of the Empire and the triumph of the ChurchJohn B. Firth10h 29m3.7 (385)$2 · $0.00
The Rise and Fall of Austria or the Habsburg EmpireJohn S. C. Abbott18h 47m3.1 (53)$2 · $0.00
Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of LincolnA. F. Kendrick4h 54m4.0 (33)$2 · $0.00
Kings, Popes and EmpiresSantiago Machain6h 2m$21 · $0.00