{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20260402T191500Z-bisacv2site-fullset","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004R1Q296?tag=bookfrontier-20","asin":"B004R1Q296","authors":["Barbara Wertheim Tuchman","Barbara W. Tuchman"],"book_id":"9780345349576","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780345349576","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780345349576.jpg?v=20260402T191500Z-bisacv2site-fullset%3A2026-04-05T16%3A15%3A58Z","description":"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 age of crusades, cathedrals, and chivalry; on the other, a world plunged into chaos and spiritual agony. In this revelatory work, Barbara W. Tuchman examines not only the great rhythms of history but the grain and texture of domestic life: what childhood was like; what marriage meant; how money, taxes, and war dominated the lives of serf, noble, and clergy alike. Granting her subjects their loyalties, treacheries, and guilty passions, Tuchman re-creates the lives of proud cardinals, university scholars, grocers and clerks, saints and mystics, lawyers and mercenaries, and, dominating all, the knight—in all his valor and “furious follies,” a “terrible worm in an iron cocoon.” Praise for A Distant Mirror “Beautifully written, careful and thorough in its scholarship . . . What Ms. Tuchman does superbly is to tell how it was. . . . No one has ever done this better.” — The New York Review of Books “A beautiful, extraordinary book . . . Tuchman at the top of her powers . . . She has done nothing finer.” — The Wall Street Journal “Wise, witty, and wonderful . . . a great book, in a great historical tradition.” —Commentary","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9780345349576","publication_date":"19870712","publisher":"Random House Publishing Group","slug":"a-distant-mirror","subtitle":"The Calamitous 14th Century","title":"A Distant Mirror"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"HIS037010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Medieval History","score":0.7874,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"HIS010020","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Western European History","score":0.778,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"HIS027230","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Medieval Warfare","score":0.7625,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"HIS037010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Medieval History","score":0.7874,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"HIS010020","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Western European History","score":0.778,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"HIS027230","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Medieval Warfare","score":0.7625,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"HIS010000","confidence_band":"high","label":"European History","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"HIS010020","confidence_band":"high","label":"Western European History","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"HIS037010","confidence_band":"high","label":"Medieval History","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"Medieval History","score":0.7874,"slug":"medieval-history"},{"label":"Western European History","score":0.778,"slug":"western-european-history"},{"label":"Medieval Warfare","score":0.7625,"slug":"medieval-warfare"}],"reader_fit":["Good for readers who enjoy Medieval History","Good for readers interested in history","Good for fans of History"],"related_lists":[{"intro":"","slug":"shelf-his037010-medieval-history","title":"Medieval History Books","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/lists/shelf-his037010-medieval-history"}],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Matthew Gabriele","David M. 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