Download or read book The Hundred Years War: Trial by fire written by Jonathan Sumption and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A succession of catastrophes in the middle years of the fourteenth century brought France to the brink of destruction. The bankruptcy of the French state and a bitter civil war within the royal family were followed by the defeat and capture of the King of France by the Black Prince at Poitiers. A peasant revolt and a violent revolution in Paris completed the tragedy ... Yet the theme of the volume is not destruction, but survival. France's great cities, provincial towns, and rural communities resisted where its leaders failed. They withstood the sustained savagery of the soldiers and the free companies of brigands to undo most of Edward III's work in the following generation. England's triumphs proved to be brittle and short-lived"--Jacket.