Diplomacy means all the wicked devices of the Old World, spheres of influence, balances of power, secret treaties, triple alliances, and, during the interim period, appeasement of Fascism.
BARBARA TUCHMAN
Historians who stuff in every item of research they have found, every shoelace and telephone call of a biographical subject, are not doing the hard work of selecting and shaping a readable story.
![Barbara Tuchman Quote - 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.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/no-economic-activity-was-more-irrepressible-in-the.jpg)
![Barbara Tuchman Quote - 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.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/the-nastiness-of-women-in-the-14th-century-was-gen-683x1024.jpg)
![Barbara Tuchman Quote - [T]he obverse of facile emotion in the 14th century was a general insensitivity to the spectacle of pain and death.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/the-obverse-of-facile-emotion-in-the-14th-century--683x1024.jpg)
![Barbara Tuchman Quote - 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.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/the-church-in-the-14th-century-gave-ceremony-and-d-683x1024.jpg)
