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in the midst of war and crisis nothing is as clear or as certain as it appears in hindsight

Barbara Tuchman

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.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Capitalist Economy Sin Usury
satire is a wrapping of exaggeration around a core of reality.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Exaggeration Reality Satire
I ask myself, have nations ever declined from a loss of moral sense rather than from physical reasons or the pressure of barbarians? I think that they have.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Barbarians Loss Thinking
No female iniquity was more severely condemned than the habit of plucking eyebrows and the hairline to heighten the forehead.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Eyebrows Female Habit
Woman was the Church’s rival, the temptress, the distraction, the obstacle to holiness, the Devil’s decoy.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Church Devil Women
Business offers a kind of power, but only to the very successful at the top, and without the dominion and titles and red carpets and motorcycle escorts of public office.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Dominion Kind Motorcycle Power Success
When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must presumption rule.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Heard Presumption Reason
When commerce with Moslems flourished, zeal for their massacre declined.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Commerce Massacres Zeal
It is wiser, I believe, to arrive at theory by way of evidence rather than the other way around…. It is more rewarding, in any case, to assemble the facts first and, in the process of arranging them in narrative form, to discover a theory or a historical generalization emerging of its own accord.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Atheism Believe Historical
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.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Art Church Little
One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Alternatives Elements Eras
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.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Cost Pay War
Rome had Caesar, a man of remarkable governing talents, although it must be said that a ruler who arouses opponents to resort to assassination is probably not as smart as he ought to be.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Country Men Opponent Smart
The whole vast challenge of a continent waiting to be exploited, combined to produce a prevailing materialism and an American drive bent as much, if not more, on money, property, and power than was true of the Old World from which we had fled.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Country Money More Prevail Property
A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Government Periods Pursuit
That conflict between the reach for the divine and the lure of earthly things was to be the central problem of the Middle Ages.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Age Conflict Problem

in the midst of war and crisis nothing is as clear or as certain as it appears in hindsight

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in the midst of war and crisis nothing is as clear or as certain as it appears in hindsight

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