“Good read on this era is A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman.”
Read it, great book. I like Tuchman.
It is a great book. She points out that they were Europeans, but many parts of their culture wouldn’t be recognized by Europeans today, such as the fun game of nailing a cat, legs out, to a door, and then taking turns trying to kill it with head butts. Let’s see today’s yutes do that!
Guns of August about the prelude and start of WWI was also good.
Tuchman’s grandfather was ambassador to Turkey under Woodrow Wilson.
I read that book in 1978, a great book that follows the Coucy family throughout the period.