Barbara Tuchman

The fourteenth century was a time of fabled crusades and chivalry, glittering cathedrals and grand castles. It was also a time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world of chaos and the plague. Here, Barbara Tuchmanmasterfully reveals the two contradictory images of the age, examining the great rhythms of history and the grain and texture of domestic life as it was lived- what childhood was like; what marriage meant; how money, taxes and war dominated the lives of serf, noble and clergy alike. Granting her subjects their loyalties, treacheries and guilty passions, Tuchman recreates the lives of proud cardinals, university scholars, grocers and clerks, saints and mystics, lawyers and mercenaries, and, above all, knights. The result is an astonishing reflection of medieval Europe, a historical tour de force.

The Calamitous 14th Century

A Distant Mirror

Barbara Tuchman's The Zimmerman Telegram is one of the greatest spy stories of all time. Nothing can stop an enemy from picking wireless messages out of the free air - and nothing did. In England, Room 40 was born . . . In January 1917, with the First World War locked in terrible stalemate and America still neutral, German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmerman gambled the future of the conflict on a single telegram. But this message was intercepted and decoded in Whitehall's legendary Room 40 - and Zimmerman's audacious scheme for world domination was exposed, bringing America into the war and changing the course of history. The story of how this happened and the incalculable consequences are thrillingly told in Barbara Tuchman's brilliant exploration. 'A most exciting book, full of vivid pen portraits and curious episodes' Sunday Times 'As thrilling as a John Buchan novel' The Times Literary Supplement 'Its 200 pages are worth more than all the thrillers and whodunits of the fiction writers put together'Herald 'A fine exciting book told with intense drama. A thriller of real life' Observer 'Brilliant. Told with great literary and dramatic talent' New York Times Book Review Barbara Tuchman achieved prominence as a historian with The Zimmerman Telegram and international fame with the Pulitzer-Prize winning The Guns of August. She is also the author of The Proud Tower, Stilwell and the American Experience in China (also awarded the Pulitzer Prize), A Distant Mirror and The March of Folly. She died in 1989. The Guns of August and The Proud Tower are published by Penguin.

The Zimmermann Telegram

In The March of Folly (originally published in 1984) Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Barbara W. Tuchman explores one of the paradoxes of history – the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests despite the availability of feasible alternatives. She draws on a comprehensive array of examples, from Montezuma’s senseless surrender of his empire in 1520 to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. In brilliant detail, Tuchman illuminates four decisive turning points in history that illustrate the very heights of folly: the Trojan War, the breakup of the Holy See provoked by the Renaissance popes, the loss of the American colonies by Britain’s George III, and the United States’ own persistent mistakes in Vietnam. Throughout The March of Folly, Tuchman’s incomparable talent for animating the people, places, and events of history is on spectacular display.

From Troy to Vietnam

The March of Folly

Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower is a haunting account of Britain on the cusp of total war - reissued for the 2014 Centenary. The last government in the Western world to possess all the attributes of aristocracy in working condition took office in England in June of 1895 . . . In this now classic work, Pulitzer prize-winning historian Barbara Tuchman explores the quarter century leading up to the First World War, from the dying embers of the British aristocracy to the fitful eruptions of the anarchist movement. She provides a compelling portrait of the key figures and conflicting ideologies of this time, giving an intimate view of an epoch that was soon to be swept away by the tide of history. 'Her intention is to make the age alive for us, and in that she abundantly succeeds' Daily Telegraph 'Tuchman has a gift of recreating a period and a mood by an inspired selection of detail and sheer narrative sweep. A volcano of a book' Evening Standard 'Impeccable scholarship and literary polish. Impossible to read without pleasure and admiration' New York Times Barbara Tuchman achieved prominence as a historian with The Zimmerman Telegram and international fame with the Pulitzer-Prize winning The Guns of August. She is also the author of Stilwell and the American Experience in China (also awarded the Pulitzer Prize), A Distant Mirror and The March of Folly. She died in 1989. The Guns of August and The Zimmerman Telegram are published by Penguin.

A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914

The Proud Tower

'Geen tijd was van nature waanzinniger dan deze tijd,' schreef de negentiende-eeuwse Franse historicus Michelet over de veertiende eeuw, het herfsttij der Middeleeuwen. Het einde der tijden lijkt nabij: viermaal wordt het werelddeel getroffen door de Zwarte Dood. De koningen van Engeland en Frankrijk bestrijden elkaar in een wrede en langdurige strijd, de Honderdjarige Oorlog, en roversbenden terroriseren de boerenbevolking. De veertiende eeuw is ook een periode van vitaliteit en culturele bloei, waarin de adel zijn heldendaden in ridderromans laat optekenen, de hoofse liefde in velerlei toonaarden wordt bezongen en waarin schrijvers als Boccaccio, Petrarca en Chaucer de grondslag leggen voor een grote literaire traditie. Met het leven van de Franse ridder Enguerrand VII van Coucy als concentratiepunt voert Tuchman de lezer door dit kleurrijke tijdperk en houdt zij onze tijd vanuit de verte een spiegel voor.

De waanzinnige veertiende eeuw

Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August is a spellbinding history of the fateful first month when Britain went to war. War pressed against every frontier. Suddenly dismayed, governments struggled and twisted to fend it off. It was no use . . . Barbara Tuchman's universally acclaimed, Pulitzer prize-winning account of how the first thirty days of battle determined the course of the First World War is to this day revered as the classic account of the conflict's opening. From the precipitous plunge into war and the brutal and bloody battles of August 1914, Tuchman shows how events were propelled by a horrific logic which swept all sides up in its unstoppable momentum. 'Dazzling' Max Hastings 'Magnificent' Guardian 'Fascinating, splendid, glittering. One of the finest works of history' New York Times 'A brilliant achievement' Sunday Telegraph Barbara Tuchman achieved prominence as a historian with The Zimmerman Telegram and international fame with the Pulitzer-Prize winning The Guns of August. She is also the author of The Proud Tower, Stilwell and the American Experience in China (also awarded the Pulitzer Prize), A Distant Mirror and The March of Folly. She died in 1989. The Proud Tower and The Zimmerman Telegram are published by Penguin.

Barbara Tuchman

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