Great Famine : Northern Europe In The Early Fourteenth Century - 96 edition

Lordan, William Chester : Princeton University

William Chester Jordan is Professor of History and Director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University. Among his books are Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade: A Study in Rulership (Princeton), Women and Credit in Pre-Industrial and Develpoing Societies, and The French Monarchy and the Jews from Philip Augustus to the Last Capetians. He is the editor-in-chief of The Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia for Students.

"In this important new synthesis of the causes, course, and consequences of the Great Famine, Jordan offers a corrective to the view that after its initial crippling effects, famine continued to afflict Europe until the ultimate devastation of the Black Death. . . . A richly detailed cultural history that considers significant regional variations and stresses the event's human dimension, including its manifold and different effects in rural and urban contexts and on people of differing age, status, and power. . . . This will become the standard work on the subject."

--Choice

"Ever since the publication of Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, many readers have had a sneaking suspicion that the 14th century is uncannily similar to our own. Anyone who takes up this book in hopes of finding a new Tuchman will find something better, though: a work of great depth written in a scholarly though engaging way. . . . [T]he impressive scholarship . . . deserves to be appreciated for its own merits. Among the many virtues of this readable work are the corrections of many common misperceptions of the Middle Ages and a bibliography that is extensive and impressive. . . . "

--Publishers Weekly

"A richly detailed cultural history. . . . This will become the standard work on the subject."

--Choice

"Anyone who takes up this book in hopes of finding a new Tuchman will find something better, though: a work of great depth written in a scholarly though engaging way."

--Publishers Weekly

"Pestilence and War have had their historians. Famine now has its own with this brilliantly written masterpiece of historical anthropology."

--Jacques Le Goff

"Superb detective work, as all good historical research should be, it is well organized, fast moving, and above all else, persuasive. Jordan spins a horrifying tale, dealing, in turn, with the nature of the calamity and how it affected the nobility, peasants, and townfolkstarvation, disease, displacement, and death.... Yes, this is true scholarship, but also a riveting tale as well."

--The Virginia Quarterly Review

Submitted by the Publisher, April, 2002

List of Maps
Acknowledgments
Prologue

Pt. I: A Calamity ''Unheard-of Among Living Men''

1 The Bringers of Famine in 1315: Rain, War, God
2 The Harvest Failures and Animal Murrains

Pt. II: The Economics and Demography of the Famine in Rural Society

3 Prices and Wages
4 The Cost-of-Living Crisis: Lords
5 The Cost-of-Living Crisis: Rustics
6 The Struggle for Survival

Pt. III: Towns and Principalities

7 Urban Demography and Economy
8 Coping in Towns
9 The Policies of Princes

Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index

• Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Mac OS X 10.3 or above
• At least 128 MB RAM, a 600 mHz processor, and 110 MB of hard drive space
• 1024x768 screen resolution or larger

eBooks and eChapters can be viewed by using Adobe Digital Editions eBook Reader.

After purchasing your eBook or eChapter you will be given instructions on where and how to download your free reader.

Due to the size of eBooks, a high-speed Internet connection (cable modem, DSL, LAN) is required for download stability and speed. Your connection can be wired or wireless.

Being online is not required for reading an eBook after successfully downloading it.You must only be connected to the Internet during the download process.

Click Here to access the Adobe Digital Editions FAQ

Digital Rights Management (DRM) Key

Printing - Books that cannot be printed will show "Not Allowed." Otherwise, this will detail the number of times it can be printed, or "Allowed with no limits."

Expires - Books that have no expiration (the date upon which you will no longer be able to access your eBook) will read "No Expiration." Otherwise it will state the number of days from activation (the first time you actually read it).

Reading Aloud - Books enabled with the "text-to-speech" feature so that they can be read aloud will show "Allowed."

Sharing - Books that cannot be shared with other computers will show "Not Allowed."

Min. Software Version - This is the minimum software version needed to read this book.

Suitable Devices - Hardware known to be compatable with this book. Note: Reader software still needs to be installed.