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Barbara W. Tuchman: The Guns Of August & The Proud Tower (Library Of America) (1962)

by Barbara W. Tuchman(Favorite Author)

4.49 of 5 Votes: 5

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Library of America

review 1: Library of America has reprinted 2 of Barbara Tuchman's most significant historical works in its series of great American literature, in this volume. "The Guns of August" is more-or-less a day by day history of the first month of World War I and how it went from ghastly slaughter on open battlefields to the horror of the trench warfare that it became for the remainimg years of the war. It chronicles the mistakes made by the high commands of both sides. They tended to use 19th century strategies & tactics which had no appreciation for how the machine gun made them obsolete. They had little appreciation of how to use airplanes. And there were conflicts among the allies and their leading generals & politicians."The Proud Tower" is a series of portraits of various aspects of b... moreoth the politics and culture of 30 years prior to World War I in Britain, Western Europe & the United States. Someone once compared visiting the past to visiting a foreign country. To understand what we were like just over 100 years ago, we have to immerse ourselves in the cultural assumptions and material conditions of those times in order to get a good understanding of them and how much we have changed since then. And, not least, to understand how the Great War came about.This volume also includes a short essay entitled "How We Entered World War I" which Tuchman published in May 1967.In this centennial year of the beginning of World War I, there is hardly a better introduction to those times than the works included in this volume.
review 2: Barbara Tuchhman was one of the great narrative historians. I first read THE GUNS OF AUGUST when it was published during my college years and was taken up with its recounting of the steps (more accurately missteps) that led to WWI. Rereading the book some forty years later did not disappoint. I had not previously read THE PROUD TOWER, however, which portrays Europe during the approximately three decades prior to the war. This volume was more ambitious, developing themes that unite elements that historians often treat separately, such as the political, diplomatic, social, and artistic developments of the period. I thought she did this very effectively. I am an historian of America and thus am not conversant with how the historiography of this period might have changed in the years since Tuchman wrote her books. But whatever questions the scholars might have regarding her work, these are works of history that general readers with an interest in their subjects will find fascinating, enlightening, and enjoyable. less

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