Barbara Tuchman (1912–1989)
Author of A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
About the Author
Barbara W. Tuchman achieved prominence as a historian with The Zimmermann Telegram, and international fame with The Guns of August--a huge bestseller and winner of the Pulitzer Prize. There followed other successes, including The Proud Tower, Stilwell and the American Experience in China (also show more awarded the Pulitzer Prize), A Distant Mirror, The March of Folly, and The First Salute. show less
Series
Works by Barbara Tuchman
Een ezel stoot zich in het gemeen... 3 copies
Cardinal 2 copies
Fodor's Israel 1 copy
Coming of the Great War, The 1 copy
Cómo se escribe la historia: Las claves para entender la historia (VARIOS GREDOS) (Spanish Edition) (2009) 1 copy
"Perdicaris Alive or Raisuli Dead," American Heritage, Vol. 10, August 1959, pp. 18-21, 98-101 1 copy
Dall'Expo a Sarajevo 1 copy
Associated Works
A World of Ideas : Conversations With Thoughtful Men and Women About American Life Today and the Ideas Shaping Our Future (1989) — Interviewee — 603 copies, 1 review
A Sense of History: The Best Writing from the Pages of American Heritage (1985) — Contributor — 492 copies, 4 reviews
An American Album: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Harper's Magazine (2000) — Contributor — 145 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Tuchman, Barbara
- Legal name
- Tuchman, Barbara Wertheim
- Birthdate
- 1912-01-30
- Date of death
- 1989-02-06
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Radcliffe College (BA|1933)
Walden School - Occupations
- journalist
historian - Organizations
- Society of American Historians
Authors Guild
Office of War Information - Awards and honors
- Jefferson Lecture (1980)
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Letters (1971, president 1979)
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1978)
Pulitzer Prize (1963, 1972)
National Book Award in History (1980)
St Louis Literary Award (1971) (show all 8)
Order of Leopold First Class
American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal (1978) - Agent
- William Loverd
- Short biography
- Barbara Wertheim Tuchman was born in 1912, and received her B.A. degree from Radcliffe College in 1933. She served as a research assistant for the Institute for Pacific Relations, 1934-1935; was an editorial assistant at The Nation, 1936-1937; a staff writer for War in Spain, London, 1937-1938; American correspondent for New Statesman and Nation, London, 1939; and was with the Far East news desk, OWI, 1944-1945. Tuchman was best known as the author of many books and articles. She was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in 1963 and 1972. Tuchman died in 1989.
- Cause of death
- stroke
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- New York, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- New York, New York, USA
Greenwich, Connecticut, USA
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Cos Cob, Connecticut, USA - Place of death
- Greenwich, Connecticut, USA
- Burial location
- Temple Israel Cemetery, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, USA
- Map Location
- USA
Members
Discussions
April-June Theme Read: War and Regions in Conflict in Reading Globally (February 2024)
GROUP READ: The Guns of August in 2013 Category Challenge (September 2013)
Reviews
Barbara Tuchman’s book, ‘The Proud Tower,’ is, as the blurb describes it, a portrait of the Western world at the turn of the nineteenth century. Her descriptions are vivid, and if you are familiar with European and American history, especially of this period, you will visualize the massive changes in society, culture, and the political landscape.
Those unfamiliar with the history and the cast of characters will find the narrative confusing because you don’t know who the people are show more and their role in society and politics.
However, I advise against allowing the details to bog you down. The uninitiated reader must focus on the big picture; if you do that, you will appreciate the massive change during those years.
British politics changed, American politicians became demanding (people like Mahan played a dominant role in defining the shifting military and naval landscape), the Dreyfuss affair rocked France, Nietzsche’s philosophy took center stage in Germany, and changes happened in Russia.
Social and political changes often leave scars, and leaders must adapt to and manage the change. Leaders who fail to adjust and modify their strategy create a recipe for disaster. When reading Barbara Tuchman’s book, I understood that the leaders of the world’s major powers were living in a dream world, unaware of the forces slowly being unleashed. Her book holds lessons for society, nations, and leaders today: technological, political, and societal changes are dramatic, and we sleepwalk into another disaster. Additionally, we live in a massive climate shift disruption. These factors, combined, are creating an explosive mixture. The leaders of the early twentieth century were blind to the dangers ahead, as are today’s leaders.
Her book does not analyze the events of those distant days but paints a vivid portrait of the era. I hoped for an analysis, but when I completed the book, I realized her approach was perfect: she painted a picture, leaving it to us to draw inferences and lessons for our age. show less
Those unfamiliar with the history and the cast of characters will find the narrative confusing because you don’t know who the people are show more and their role in society and politics.
However, I advise against allowing the details to bog you down. The uninitiated reader must focus on the big picture; if you do that, you will appreciate the massive change during those years.
British politics changed, American politicians became demanding (people like Mahan played a dominant role in defining the shifting military and naval landscape), the Dreyfuss affair rocked France, Nietzsche’s philosophy took center stage in Germany, and changes happened in Russia.
Social and political changes often leave scars, and leaders must adapt to and manage the change. Leaders who fail to adjust and modify their strategy create a recipe for disaster. When reading Barbara Tuchman’s book, I understood that the leaders of the world’s major powers were living in a dream world, unaware of the forces slowly being unleashed. Her book holds lessons for society, nations, and leaders today: technological, political, and societal changes are dramatic, and we sleepwalk into another disaster. Additionally, we live in a massive climate shift disruption. These factors, combined, are creating an explosive mixture. The leaders of the early twentieth century were blind to the dangers ahead, as are today’s leaders.
Her book does not analyze the events of those distant days but paints a vivid portrait of the era. I hoped for an analysis, but when I completed the book, I realized her approach was perfect: she painted a picture, leaving it to us to draw inferences and lessons for our age. show less
Tuchman was a great narrative writer and her take on the American Revolution is wide, focusing not mainly on domestic politics and the run-up to 1775/1776, but the international war between Britain, the French, the Dutch, and the Spanish. Focusing too on the END of the war, Yorktown and the naval fights of de Grasse, Rodney, et al., in an international perspective. I learned quite a lot, and was pleased with the shift of perspective. All of Tuchman's narrative gifts and researching skill are show more in full force. show less
The Senselessness Of War
Barbara Tuchman's classic history of the first month of World War I recounts the way nationalistic bravado and unrealistic expectations about quick victory enmeshed the world in savage bloodshed in August of 1914. Any story of the first half of the Twentieth Century would provide these facts, but Tuchman's work gives particularly sharp insight into the minds and characters of the men who made the fateful decisions to go to war and to continue the carnage.
Parallels show more with later leaders and later wars are inevitable, and probably the best reason for making the book required reading. The most stunning fact, to me, is that, despite the interminable years of deadly trench warfare that followed the events of August, the crushing economics of the cost of the war, and the millions of dead, Europe was back at it again twenty years later.
One of the great works of historical scholarship. show less
Barbara Tuchman's classic history of the first month of World War I recounts the way nationalistic bravado and unrealistic expectations about quick victory enmeshed the world in savage bloodshed in August of 1914. Any story of the first half of the Twentieth Century would provide these facts, but Tuchman's work gives particularly sharp insight into the minds and characters of the men who made the fateful decisions to go to war and to continue the carnage.
Parallels show more with later leaders and later wars are inevitable, and probably the best reason for making the book required reading. The most stunning fact, to me, is that, despite the interminable years of deadly trench warfare that followed the events of August, the crushing economics of the cost of the war, and the millions of dead, Europe was back at it again twenty years later.
One of the great works of historical scholarship. show less
Picked up after The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark (a magistral book telling of the complex diplomatic and political intricacies that had led to the outbreak of WWI) I decided to read this 'classic bestseller', winner of the Pulitzer Prize 1963 so as to learn more about how crucial was the first month of the war in turning it into the defensive trench warfare we all know. It's popular history, so can be over simplistic at times; but I wasn't disappointed. show more
The author here focuses mainly on the decisive first few battles. As such, I found the military accounts and strategic explanations (all these troops movements and commanding decisions parading confusingly under our eyes like a difficult to follow war board game at play) a bit daunting, if not boring! Yet, I couldn't be but engrossed by the overall picture offered by it all, especially since each of these battles, moves, and contradictory decisions (even high officers disobeyed each others at times, impacting the course of events in drastic and unexpected way!) brilliantly serve, put altogether, a straightforward understanding of how all belligerents would ultimately end up bogged down in a muddy defensive conflict. Indeed, the Germans had the Schlieffen Plan, the French Plan 17, and both will fail miserably due to miscalculations, stubbornness, clashes of personalities and insubordinations that all make for a sad portrait of human nature.
Having said that, I had, however, a few issues in here. I understand Barbara Tuchman to have wanted to write as accessible an account as possible, and I also fully acknowledge this was first published in 1962, at a time where the historiography was quite different than from now. But, I still remained a bit uncomfortable with the cliches entertained: the British appears phlegmatic if not worse; the French arrogantly self-confident and stubborn; and, above all, the Germans characteristically aggressive, militaristic, and convinced of their right to dominate Europe. This could be brushed of easily, if not for what it entails. Here are indeed a couple of quotes loaded with meaning, and that deserve attention:
'believing themselves superior in soul, in strength, in energy, industry, and national virtue, Germans felt they deserved the dominion of Europe.'
'Character is fate, the Greeks believed. An hundred years of German philosophy went into the making of this decision in which the seed of self-destruction lay embedded, waiting its hour. The voice was Schlieffen's, but the hand was the hand of Fichte who saw the German people chosen by Providence to occupy the supreme place in the history of the universe, of Hegel who saw them leading the world to a glorious destiny of compulsory Kultur, of Nietzsche who told them that Supermen were above ordinary controls, of Treitschke who set the increase of power as the highest moral duty of the state, of the whole German people, who called their temporal ruler the 'All-Highest'. What made the Schlieffen plan was not Clausewitz and the Battle of Cannae, but the body of accumulated egoism which suckled the German people and created a nation fed on 'the desperate delusion of the will that deems itself absolute'.
Here indeed are strong words reflecting a strong stance, which is a slippery slope as it not only plays upon national prejudices and characters, but, above all, is tantamount to accuse Germany to be the sole responsible for the outbreak and turn of the war. It's an interpretation that had its success (the same type of 'Sonderweg-theory' had been put forward to try and explain Nazism...) yet it remain controversial, and in its over simplistic view as in here, doesn't bear much historical truth (as has been demonstrated by other historians since then). Average contemporary readers ought therefore to be very careful with some of the author's views...
Controversy put aside, for sure, exposing as she does the weaknesses, likes and dislikes, and other flaws of the involved protagonists brings them closer to the reader, and, so, more human. They nevertheless constitute an appalling testimony to the folly and waste of human warfare. At the heart of it all stood for instance the fate of Belgium, and how the conflict unfolded there is deeply harrowing. The heroic defence of Liege, but, above all, the time taken to remind what happened at Louvain (and elsewhere) following German's policies in regard to civilian resistance is shocking. Such emotional account also nails a point that will echo throughout the war:
'the gesture that was intended by the Germans to frighten the world -to induce submission- instead convinced large numbers of people that here was an enemy with whom there could be no settlement and no compromise... people of the Allied nations were persuaded that they faced an enemy that had to be beaten, a regime that had to destroyed, a war that must be fought to a finish'.
What Barbara Tuchman does brilliantly is also to take seemingly insignificant details to reveal their crucial importance, and, as it turned out, major later impact. The journey of the battlecruiser 'Goeben' across the Mediterranean, for example, read like a wild goose chase; but as it will bring Turkey into the war (triggering other countries to follow suit, Gallipoli, the cutting off of Russia, and all that would result...) such snippet turn as gripping as the rest.
It surely is a pity that 'The Guns of August' only focuses on the Russian and French fronts, and doesn't deal at all with Austria and Serbia. Yet, such limited concentration helps to make understanding of the war simpler, and so more accessible. Spilling into September 1914, and so ending with the Battle of the Marne, here's therefore an invaluable narrative to better understand how WWI will turned into the trench war we are all familiar with, even if, again, the telling of the military battles can be boring, and the views expressed be outdated and in need to be approached with caution!
A good book all in all. Knowing now that the shells of August 1914 would resonate across the whole 20th century, the question remains: have we learn anything from the miscalculations and blunders brought about by Jingoism? show less
The author here focuses mainly on the decisive first few battles. As such, I found the military accounts and strategic explanations (all these troops movements and commanding decisions parading confusingly under our eyes like a difficult to follow war board game at play) a bit daunting, if not boring! Yet, I couldn't be but engrossed by the overall picture offered by it all, especially since each of these battles, moves, and contradictory decisions (even high officers disobeyed each others at times, impacting the course of events in drastic and unexpected way!) brilliantly serve, put altogether, a straightforward understanding of how all belligerents would ultimately end up bogged down in a muddy defensive conflict. Indeed, the Germans had the Schlieffen Plan, the French Plan 17, and both will fail miserably due to miscalculations, stubbornness, clashes of personalities and insubordinations that all make for a sad portrait of human nature.
Having said that, I had, however, a few issues in here. I understand Barbara Tuchman to have wanted to write as accessible an account as possible, and I also fully acknowledge this was first published in 1962, at a time where the historiography was quite different than from now. But, I still remained a bit uncomfortable with the cliches entertained: the British appears phlegmatic if not worse; the French arrogantly self-confident and stubborn; and, above all, the Germans characteristically aggressive, militaristic, and convinced of their right to dominate Europe. This could be brushed of easily, if not for what it entails. Here are indeed a couple of quotes loaded with meaning, and that deserve attention:
'believing themselves superior in soul, in strength, in energy, industry, and national virtue, Germans felt they deserved the dominion of Europe.'
'Character is fate, the Greeks believed. An hundred years of German philosophy went into the making of this decision in which the seed of self-destruction lay embedded, waiting its hour. The voice was Schlieffen's, but the hand was the hand of Fichte who saw the German people chosen by Providence to occupy the supreme place in the history of the universe, of Hegel who saw them leading the world to a glorious destiny of compulsory Kultur, of Nietzsche who told them that Supermen were above ordinary controls, of Treitschke who set the increase of power as the highest moral duty of the state, of the whole German people, who called their temporal ruler the 'All-Highest'. What made the Schlieffen plan was not Clausewitz and the Battle of Cannae, but the body of accumulated egoism which suckled the German people and created a nation fed on 'the desperate delusion of the will that deems itself absolute'.
Here indeed are strong words reflecting a strong stance, which is a slippery slope as it not only plays upon national prejudices and characters, but, above all, is tantamount to accuse Germany to be the sole responsible for the outbreak and turn of the war. It's an interpretation that had its success (the same type of 'Sonderweg-theory' had been put forward to try and explain Nazism...) yet it remain controversial, and in its over simplistic view as in here, doesn't bear much historical truth (as has been demonstrated by other historians since then). Average contemporary readers ought therefore to be very careful with some of the author's views...
Controversy put aside, for sure, exposing as she does the weaknesses, likes and dislikes, and other flaws of the involved protagonists brings them closer to the reader, and, so, more human. They nevertheless constitute an appalling testimony to the folly and waste of human warfare. At the heart of it all stood for instance the fate of Belgium, and how the conflict unfolded there is deeply harrowing. The heroic defence of Liege, but, above all, the time taken to remind what happened at Louvain (and elsewhere) following German's policies in regard to civilian resistance is shocking. Such emotional account also nails a point that will echo throughout the war:
'the gesture that was intended by the Germans to frighten the world -to induce submission- instead convinced large numbers of people that here was an enemy with whom there could be no settlement and no compromise... people of the Allied nations were persuaded that they faced an enemy that had to be beaten, a regime that had to destroyed, a war that must be fought to a finish'.
What Barbara Tuchman does brilliantly is also to take seemingly insignificant details to reveal their crucial importance, and, as it turned out, major later impact. The journey of the battlecruiser 'Goeben' across the Mediterranean, for example, read like a wild goose chase; but as it will bring Turkey into the war (triggering other countries to follow suit, Gallipoli, the cutting off of Russia, and all that would result...) such snippet turn as gripping as the rest.
It surely is a pity that 'The Guns of August' only focuses on the Russian and French fronts, and doesn't deal at all with Austria and Serbia. Yet, such limited concentration helps to make understanding of the war simpler, and so more accessible. Spilling into September 1914, and so ending with the Battle of the Marne, here's therefore an invaluable narrative to better understand how WWI will turned into the trench war we are all familiar with, even if, again, the telling of the military battles can be boring, and the views expressed be outdated and in need to be approached with caution!
A good book all in all. Knowing now that the shells of August 1914 would resonate across the whole 20th century, the question remains: have we learn anything from the miscalculations and blunders brought about by Jingoism? show less
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Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 28
- Also by
- 8
- Members
- 29,905
- Popularity
- #671
- Rating
- 4.1
- Reviews
- 464
- ISBNs
- 417
- Languages
- 18
- Favorited
- 133
