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Barbara Tuchman

Barbara Tuchman Quotes

Historian

Barbara Tuchman was an American historian renowned for her in-depth research and vivid narrative style. Her works covered historical events from the Roman Empire to the 20th century, with 'Guns, Germs, and Steel' and 'The Guns of August' being particularly notable.

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Famous Barbara Tuchman Quotes

“Money was the crux. Raising money to pay the cost of war was to cause more damage to 14th century society than the physical destruction of war itself.”

War Causes Pay Century Cost Destruction Damage Crux Cost Of War Raising Money

Author:Barbara Tuchman

“The social damage was not in the failure but in the undertaking, which was expensive. The cost of war was the poison running through the 14th century.”

War Running Social Century Cost Damage Poison Expensive Undertakings Cost Of War

Book:A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

Source: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

“Modern historians have suggested that in his last years he (Richard II) was overtaken by mental disease, but that is only a modern view of the malfunction common to 14th century rulers: inability to inhibit impulse.”

Years Lasts Views Common Modern Century Disease Impulse Historian Rulers Last Year Inability Malfunction Richard Ii

Author:Barbara Tuchman

“The ills and disorders of the 14th century could not be without consequence. Times were to grow worse over the next fifty-odd years until at some imperceptible moment, by the some mysterious chemistry, energies were refreshed, ideas broke out of the mold of the Middle Ages into new realms, and humanity found itself redirected.”

Years Ideas Moments Age Humanity Next Found Energy Grows Middle Century Consequence Mysterious Broke Odd Realms Fifty Chemistry Disorder Middle Ages Mold

Author:Barbara Tuchman

“[T]he obverse of facile emotion in the 14th century was a general insensitivity to the spectacle of pain and death.”

Pain Emotion Century Insensitivity

Author:Barbara Tuchman

“It hurt the economic historians, the Marxists and the fabians, to admit that the Ten Hour Bill, the basic piece of 19th century legislation, came down from the top, out of aa nobleman's private feelings about the Gospel, or that the abolition of the slave trade was achieved, not through the operation of some "law" of profit and loss, but peurlet as the result of tyhe new humanitarianism of the Evangelicals.”

“For belligerent purposes, the 14th century, like the 20th, commanded a technology more sophisticated than the mental and moral capacity that guided its use.”

Use Purpose Moral Technology Century Capacity Sophisticated

Book:A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

Source: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

“To ensure that no one gained an advantage over anyone else, commercial law prohibited innovation in tools or techniques, underselling below a fixed price, working late by artificial light, employing extra apprentices or wife and under-age children, and advertising of wares or praising them to the detriment of others.”

Children Light Law Wife Century Late Advantage Tools Innovation Praise Technique Advertising Fixed Extras Artificial Apprentice Employing Artificial Light Working Late

Author:Barbara Tuchman

“The clergy [in the 14th century] on the whole were probably no more lecherous or greedy or untrustworthy than other men, but because they were supposed to be better or nearer to God than other men, their failings attracted more attention.”

Men Whole Attention Failing Century Supposed To Be Greedy Clergy Untrustworthy

Book:A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

Source: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

“No economic activity was more irrepressible [in the 14th century] than the investment and lending at interest of money; it was the basis for the rise of the Western capitalist economy and the building of private fortunes-and it was based on the sin of usury.”

Interest Sin Economy Economic Century Building Activity Capitalism Bases Fortune Investment Western Capitalist Lending Usury Irrepressible Capitalist Economy

Book:A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

Source: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

“The Church [in the 14th century] gave ceremony and dignity to lives that had little of either. It was the source of beauty and art to which all had some access and which many helped to create.”

Littles Art Church Century Source Dignity Access Ceremony

Book:A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

Source: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

“That the Jews were unholy was a belief so ingrained by the Church [by the 14th century] that the most devout persons were the harshest in their antipathy, none more so than St. Louis.”

Persons Belief Church Century Jew Antipathy

Book:A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

Source: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

“While husbands and lovers in the stories are of all kinds, ranging from sympathetic to disgusting, women are invariably deceivers: inconstant, unscrupulous, quarrelsome, querulous, lecherous, shameless, although not necessarily all of these at once.”

Men Kind Stories Century Lovers Husband Men And Women All Kinds Disgusting Sympathetic Shameless Deceiver

Author:Barbara Tuchman

“The nastiness of women [in the 14th century] was generally perceived at the close of life when a man began to worry about hell, and his sexual desire in any case fading.”

Men Desire Women Cases Worry Hell Century Fading Sexual Desire Nastiness

Author:Barbara Tuchman

“Woman was the Church's rival, the temptress, the distraction, the obstacle to holiness, the Devil's decoy.”

Women Church Century Devil Obstacles Holiness Distraction Rivals Temptress

Author:Barbara Tuchman

“No female iniquity was more severely condemned than the habit of plucking eyebrows and the hairline to heighten the forehead.”

Century Habit Female Eyebrows Foreheads Wrongdoing Iniquity

Author:Barbara Tuchman