Barbara Tuchman
Encyclopedia
Barbara Wertheim Tuchman (ˈtʌkmən; January 30, 1912 – February 6, 1989) was an American historian and author. She became known for her best-selling book The Guns of August
, a history of the prelude to and first month of World War I, which won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
in 1963.
Tuchman focused on writing popular history
. Her clear, dramatic storytelling covered topics as diverse as the 14th century and World War I, and sold millions of copies.
. She was a first cousin of New York district attorney Robert M. Morgenthau
, a niece of Henry Morgenthau, Jr.
and granddaughter of Henry Morgenthau Sr., Woodrow Wilson
's Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire
. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Radcliffe College
in 1933.
She married Lester R. Tuchman, an internist
, medical researcher and professor of clinical medicine
at Mount Sinai School of Medicine
, in 1939; they had three daughters (one of whom is Jessica Mathews
).
From 1934 to 1935 she worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Pacific Relations
in New York and Tokyo, and then began a career as a journalist before turning to books. Tuchman was the editorial assistant for The Nation
and an American correspondent for the New Statesman
in London, the Far East News Desk and the Office of War Information (1944–45).
Tuchman was a trustee
of Radcliffe College
and a lecturer at Harvard University
, University of California
, and the U.S. Naval War College. A tower of Currier House
, a Harvard College
residential dormitory, was named in her honor.
, first for The Guns of August in 1963, and again for Stilwell and the American Experience in China in 1972. In 1980 the National Endowment for the Humanities
(NEH) selected Tuchman for the Jefferson Lecture
, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities
. Tuchman's lecture was entitled "Mankind's Better Moments."
, popular historian of note, Radcliffe alumnae, attributes her storytelling to Tuchman.
The Guns of August
The Guns of August, also published as August 1914 , is a military history book written by Barbara Tuchman. It primarily describes in great detail the events of the first month of World War I, which for most of the great powers involved in the war was August 1914...
, a history of the prelude to and first month of World War I, which won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
The Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction has been awarded since 1962 for a distinguished book of non-fiction by an American author that is not eligible for consideration in another category.-1960s:...
in 1963.
Tuchman focused on writing popular history
Popular history
Popular history is a broad and somewhat ill-defined genre of historiography that takes a popular approach, aims at a wide readership, and usually emphasizes narrative, personality and vivid detail over scholarly analysis...
. Her clear, dramatic storytelling covered topics as diverse as the 14th century and World War I, and sold millions of copies.
Life and career
Tuchman was the daughter of the banker Maurice WertheimMaurice Wertheim
Maurice Wertheim was an American investment banker, chess player, chess patron, environmentalist, and philanthropist. He financed much of the activity in American chess during the 1940s. Wertheim founded Wertheim & Co. in 1927.-Biography:Maurice Wertheim graduated from Harvard University in 1906...
. She was a first cousin of New York district attorney Robert M. Morgenthau
Robert M. Morgenthau
Robert Morris Morgenthau is an American lawyer. From 1975 until his retirement in 2009, he was the District Attorney for New York County, the borough of Manhattan.-Early life:...
, a niece of Henry Morgenthau, Jr.
Henry Morgenthau, Jr.
Henry Morgenthau, Jr. was the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He played a major role in designing and financing the New Deal...
and granddaughter of Henry Morgenthau Sr., Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
's Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the coordinate college for Harvard University. It was also one of the Seven Sisters colleges. Radcliffe College conferred joint Harvard-Radcliffe diplomas beginning in 1963 and a formal merger agreement with...
in 1933.
She married Lester R. Tuchman, an internist
Internal medicine
Internal medicine is the medical specialty dealing with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of adult diseases. Physicians specializing in internal medicine are called internists. They are especially skilled in the management of patients who have undifferentiated or multi-system disease processes...
, medical researcher and professor of clinical medicine
Clinical Medicine
Clinical Medicine is a peer-reviewed medical journal published bimonthly by the Royal College of Physicians. It was established in 1966 as the Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of London. It was doubly named between 1998 and 2000, and since 2001 it has appeared as Clinical Medicine. Its...
at Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Mount Sinai School of Medicine is an American medical school in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, currently ranked among the top 20 medical schools in the United States. It was chartered by Mount Sinai Hospital in 1963....
, in 1939; they had three daughters (one of whom is Jessica Mathews
Jessica Mathews
Jessica Tuchman Mathews is the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a foreign policy think tank in Washington D.C. She has held the post since 1997...
).
From 1934 to 1935 she worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Pacific Relations
Institute of Pacific Relations
The Institute of Pacific Relations was an international NGO established in 1925 to provide a forum for discussion of problems and relations between nations of the Pacific Rim. The International Secretariat, the center of most IPR activity over the years, consisted of professional staff members who...
in New York and Tokyo, and then began a career as a journalist before turning to books. Tuchman was the editorial assistant for The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
and an American correspondent for the New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
in London, the Far East News Desk and the Office of War Information (1944–45).
Tuchman was a trustee
Trustee
Trustee is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, can refer to any person who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility for the benefit of another...
of Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the coordinate college for Harvard University. It was also one of the Seven Sisters colleges. Radcliffe College conferred joint Harvard-Radcliffe diplomas beginning in 1963 and a formal merger agreement with...
and a lecturer at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
, and the U.S. Naval War College. A tower of Currier House
Currier House
Currier House is one of twelve undergraduate residential Houses of Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Opened in September 1970, it is named after Audrey Bruce Currier, a member of the Radcliffe College Class of 1956 who, along with her husband, was killed in a plane crash in 1967...
, a Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
residential dormitory, was named in her honor.
Tuchman's Law
Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place. Besides, persistence of the normal is usually greater than the effect of the disturbance, as we know from our own times. After absorbing the news of today, one expects to face a world consisting entirely of strikes, crimes, power failures, broken water mains, stalled trains, school shutdowns, muggers, drug addicts, neo-Nazis, and rapists. The fact is that one can come home in the evening, on a lucky day, without having encountered more than one or two of these phenomena. This has led me to formulate Tuchman's Law, as follows: "The fact of being reported multiplies the apparent extent of any deplorable development by five- to tenfold (or any figure the reader would care to supply)."
Awards and honors
Tuchman twice won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-FictionPulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
The Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction has been awarded since 1962 for a distinguished book of non-fiction by an American author that is not eligible for consideration in another category.-1960s:...
, first for The Guns of August in 1963, and again for Stilwell and the American Experience in China in 1972. In 1980 the National Endowment for the Humanities
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...
(NEH) selected Tuchman for the Jefferson Lecture
Jefferson Lecture
The Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities is an honorary lecture series established in 1972 by the National Endowment for the Humanities . According to the NEH, the Lecture is "the highest honor the federal government confers for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities."-History of...
, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
. Tuchman's lecture was entitled "Mankind's Better Moments."
Books
- The Lost British Policy: Britain and Spain Since 1700 (1938)
- Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour (1956)
- The Zimmermann Telegram (1958)—The Zimmermann TelegramZimmermann TelegramThe Zimmermann Telegram was a 1917 diplomatic proposal from the German Empire to Mexico to make war against the United States. The proposal was caught by the British before it could get to Mexico. The revelation angered the Americans and led in part to a U.S...
in early 1917 was a key incident involving GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and MexicoMexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
that helped provoke the U.S. into entering World War I. - The Guns of AugustThe Guns of AugustThe Guns of August, also published as August 1914 , is a military history book written by Barbara Tuchman. It primarily describes in great detail the events of the first month of World War I, which for most of the great powers involved in the war was August 1914...
(1962) details the military decisions and actions that occurred leading up to and during the first month of World War I. It is primarily what established her reputation. During the Cuban Missile CrisisCuban Missile CrisisThe Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
, John F. KennedyJohn F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
advised the EXCOMM to read this book. Reprinted several times in the 1980s as August 1914. - The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890–1914The Proud TowerThe Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 is a 1966 book by Barbara Tuchman, collecting essays she had published in various periodicals during the mid 1960s. It followed the publication of the highly successful The Guns of August...
(1966)—Covers the hesitant rise of U.S. imperialismImperialismImperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
, anarchist assassinations, socialism, communism, and the devolution of the 19th century order in Europe and North America. - Stilwell and the American Experience in China (1970)—A biography of Joseph StilwellJoseph StilwellGeneral Joseph Warren Stilwell was a United States Army four-star General known for service in the China Burma India Theater. His caustic personality was reflected in the nickname "Vinegar Joe"...
. - Notes from China (1972) (about Tuchman’s own visit there)
- A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth CenturyA Distant MirrorA Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, published in 1978, is a work by American historian and Pulitizer Prize winner Barbara Tuchman, focusing on life in 14th century Europe....
(1978)—Examines the era of 1340–1400 through political, military, and social lenses, taking nobleman Enguerrand VII de CoucyEnguerrand VII de CoucyEnguerrand VII de Coucy, KG , also known as Ingelram de Coucy, was a 14th century French nobleman, the last Sieur de Coucy, and the son-in-law of King Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault...
as its central figure. Themes include the folly of chivalry and the tragedy of war. - Practicing History (1981)—Selected essays, published between 1935 and 1981, on historical writing, political ambition, and the importance of reading history.
- The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam (1984)—A meditation on the historical recurrence of governments pursuing policies evidently contrary to their own interests. In addition to the two historical events referenced in the title, discusses the Catholic Church of the late Renaissance inciting the Protestant rebellion and Great Britain provoking the Americans to revolt.
- The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution (1988). (The title refers to the St. Eustatius "flag incident" of 16 November 1776.)
Other works
- America's Security in the 1980s (1982)—Photographed with Laurence MartinLaurence MartinSir Laurence Woodward Martin Kt DL is a former Vice-Chancellor of Newcastle University.-Career:Educated at St Austell Grammar School, Christ's College, Cambridge and Yale University, Martin joined the Royal Air Force as a Flying Officer in 1948. He became Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at...
for this Christopher Bertram book. - The Book: A lecture sponsored by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress and the Authors’ League of America, presented at the Library of Congress October 17, 1979 (1980)
See also
Pauline MaierPauline Maier
Pauline Maier is a popular scholar of the American Revolution, the preceding era and post-revolutionary United States. She is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of American History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ....
, popular historian of note, Radcliffe alumnae, attributes her storytelling to Tuchman.