Thank you for all the suggestions. I’ve put a lot of them on my wishlist and will start ordering some. I’m already ordering “A Distant Mirror.”
Once again, thanks to all of you.
I think I may pick up a few of these as well.
God, I’m already so far behind in my history reading…
I’m going to add another nomination for A Distant Mirror, even though it appears you’re already ordering it. I came into this thread to mention it, and was not particularly surprised that the very first recommendation was for that book.
As an alternative, I recommend Agincourt: Henry V and the Battle That Made England, by Juliet Barker. It was released in 2006 so not a lot of people may be aware of it yet.
Guns, Germs & Steel
I’ll second Hypno-Toad’s recommendation of work by Frances and Joseph Gies. I like Women in the Middle Ages and Marriage and Family in the Middle Ages. *The Knight, the Lady, and the Priest * by Georges Duby is another good book that deals with marriage and private life in medieval France.
Don’t forget about Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose if you like your historical fiction historical with a heavy dash of semiotics. Another fascinating (and rather short) non-fiction book is Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller.
Ooh, another good one. A dense read, but worth the effort.
BTW, if you want fictionalized pre-history, Clan of the Cave Bear is good. I think the author did an excellent job of researching the lifestyles of her subjects. Do not, under any circumstances, read any of the sequels, unless you find a copy with everything redacted but basket-making.
It was nice to see works by Carlo Ginzburg and Geoffrey Parker already cited. Dr. Parker, who was my advisor, is the finest academic I have ever met and is tremendously gracious and accomodating. I enjoy most everything he has written. Depending upon what period you’re interested in, you might also look at his edited work, The Thirty Years’ War.
Similar to Ginzburg, I would suggest Natalie Z. Davis’s microhistory, The Return of Martin Guerre which has the added advantage of having been made into a reasonably accurate and enjoyable film.
For the military of France after the revolution two works are particularly good:
John Lynn, The Bayonets of the Republic and Gunther Rothenburg, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon. Good luck.
A good history of the French Revolution is Simon Schama’s “Citizens”.