Men at arms

 The Hundred Years’ War, Volumes 1-4. By Jonathan Sumption. University of Pennsylvania Press; 3,320 pages; $170. Faber & Faber; £84

This series is set long before capitalism got going. The Hundred Years’ War, effectively a French civil war which England egged on, started shortly before the Black Death around the 1340s and finished in the mid-15th century. But the book nonetheless does a fantastic job of showing how different governance and politics were before capitalism, and thus what changed from the 18th century onwards. Kings did not care about economic growth, or even know what it was: they wanted glory. They were happy to tax their subjects to oblivion to fund their missions. And they often laid waste to an opponent’s conquered land, rather than using it for productive purposes. If you don’t have the patience for four full volumes—soon to be five—the single best chapter of the entire series is called “Men at arms”, in the fourth volume, which tells you everything you need to know about the economics of the war.