The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War 1890-1914

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The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War 1890-1914

4.14 of 5 stars 4.14 · rating details · 2,593 ratings · 150 reviews

"The diplomatic origins, so-called, of the War are only the fever chart of the patient; they do not tell us what caused the fever. To probe for underlying causes and deeper forces one must operate within the framework of a whole society and try to discover what moved the people in it."
--Barbara W. Tuchman
The fateful quarter-century leading up to the World War I was a time...more

Paperback, 544 pages

Published August 27th 1996 by Random House Trade Paperbacks (first published 1966)

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Dec 12, 2008 Wes Freeman rated it 4 of 5 stars

Engaging history of white people from late 19th century to WWI. Written by American journalist living in U.K. and published in 1966, book purports to be "A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914" -- which it ain't by a damn sight -- and works as a pretty good oil painting of the U.K., France, Germany, and the U.S. (with smatterings of Russia, Spain and Italy thrown in for spice) before they all started killing each other with gas and machine guns. Author shows us the political, social,...more Engaging history of white people from late 19th century to WWI. Written by American journalist living in U.K. and published in 1966, book purports to be "A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914" -- which it ain't by a damn sight -- and works as a pretty good oil painting of the U.K., France, Germany, and the U.S. (with smatterings of Russia, Spain and Italy thrown in for spice) before they all started killing each other with gas and machine guns. Author shows us the political, social, and artistic zeitgeist(en) of what we on this side of the pond call the Gilded Age, giving them all equal emphasis (she must have done hella research) and doing a slow reveal on a time when ideas held such cultural currency that it was hard to tell the difference between what was actually political, social and artistic. What author sees in them days was boundless anticipation, a sense of progress, thousands of folks intoxicated by theory and oratory right before The Great War slapped a moratorium on that kinda Euro-centric idealism for the foreseeable future. All that social ferment yields a heady brew, but pouring it down the drain of history ain't all bad. In addition to exegeses on social progression, book also gives us the image of Western Civilization as a trans-Atlantic European boys club wrestling with humanist governance vs. nationalist self-preservation in the face of great change. The line between crusading progressive and mustachioed blowhard gets a little blurry after awhile, and it's hard to tell who the good guys are: Still needing a slide-rule to work out who the heroes were in the Dreyfus Affair, France's multi-tentacled meta-nationalist trial-of-the-century. The impression I get is that this European generation was actually pretty jazzed about the war in which they would wind up exterminating themselves because a) it had been a long time since the last war and b) they had piles of cool new war things (gas, air machines, rules [see the Hague Conventions of 1899 & 1907:]) they wanted to try out. Kaiser Wilhelm II just knew this war was gonna be awesome.

Clever trick author pulls by saving her socialism section for the end, unwinding the tale of irascibly brilliant cadre men and women dedicating their significant mental resources to the liberation of the international worker; taking Marx's admonishment against nationhood to heart, French, German, British and American intellectuals brainstorm for decades about the best way to improve the plight of the bottom strata of society. Their rhetoric gets a little heavy, even silly, at times, but when WWI cuts it short, it's a drag. When Kaiser Wilhelm declares war, barking, "I know no groups, only Germans" (the inverse of Marx's maxim "the worker knows no fatherland") we get ready to watch the Socialists march off to kill each other back on earth. Author gives us the full brunt of nationalism's tragic victory over humanism. We also get ready for serious men in ridiculous helmets, blood-muddy trenches, evil-looking gas masks, the tropes of a new century's killing fields; an ugly, absurd death for a shining, absurd era. Author knows how remote this period will seem to her readers in the 60s -- and it's from fucking Mars in 2008, by the way -- so she writes it all down with the kind of loving and amused distance we reserve at Christmas for kids who don't know about Santa Claus yet. Author loves this time, but I think she's glad she knows the truth.(less)

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Nov 15, 2007 Andrew added it

Things I've read around noon, 15 November pp. 239-246:

"The last proposed agreement on the principle of arbitration and the working out of procedures. Topics 2, 3, and 4 dealt with prohibition or restriction of new types of weapons and predicted means of warfare, such as submarines, asphyxiating gases and 'the launching of projectiles from balloons' for which no specific verb existed.

[. . .]

The Foreign Minister was Count Bernhard von Bulow, an elegant gentleman of extreme suavity and self-assuran...more Things I've read around noon, 15 November pp. 239-246:

"The last proposed agreement on the principle of arbitration and the working out of procedures. Topics 2, 3, and 4 dealt with prohibition or restriction of new types of weapons and predicted means of warfare, such as submarines, asphyxiating gases and 'the launching of projectiles from balloons' for which no specific verb existed.

[. . .]

The Foreign Minister was Count Bernhard von Bulow, an elegant gentleman of extreme suavity and self-assurance and a manner so well oiled that in conversation and correspondence he seemed always to be rubbing his hands like a rug merchant. He used to scribble notes on his shirt cuffs for fear of forgetting the least of His Majesty's wishes. In an effort to catch the effortless parliamentary manner of Balfour he practiced holding onto his coat lapels before the bathroom mirror, coached by an attache from the Foreign Office. 'Watch,' murmered a knowing observer in the Reichstag when Bulow rose to speak, 'here comes the business with the lapels.'

Behind Bulow in control of foreign policy was the invisible Holstein who in the manner of Byzantine courts exercised power without national office. He regarded all diplomacy as conspiracy, all overtures of foreign office as containing a concealed trick, and conducted foreign relations on the premise of everyone's animosity for Germany.

[. . .]

People of Bedford, Rotherhood Residents, or Public Meeting at Bath, Committees of the Liberal Party. All Nonconformists sects were represented: Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, Christian Endeavor, Welsh Nonconformists, Irish Evangelicals [. . .] Bible associations, adult schools, women's schools, the National British Women's Temperance Association, the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, the west of Scotland Peace and Arbitration Assoc., the Humanitarian League, the Oxford Women's Liberal Association, the General Board of Protestant Dissenters, the Mayor of Leicester, the Lord Mayor of Sheffield, the Town Clerk of Poole. [. . .]"

All of which is, at least, second to what I read a few weeks ago on the train:

"The most prominent among the new Anarchist leaders was Prince Peter Kropotkin, by birth an aristocrat, by profession a geographer, and by conviction a revolutionist. His sensational escape after two years' imprisonment from the grim fortress of Peter and Paul in 1876 had endowed him with a heroic aura, kept bright afterwards during his years of exile in Switzerland, France, and England by unrepentent and unremitting preaching in the cause of revolt. [. . .] He was born in 1842. After service as an officer of Cossacks in Siberia, where he studied the geography of the region, he became Secretary of the Geographical Society, for whom he explored the glaciers of Finland and Sweden in 1871. Meanwhile he had become a member of a secret revolutionary committee, and on this being discovered, his arrest and imprisonment followed. After his escape in 1876 - the year Bakunin died - he went to Switzerland, where he worked with Elisee Reclus, the French geographer and a fellow Anarchist, on Reclus' monumental geography of the world. Kropotkin wrote the volume on Siberia and, with Reclus, founded and for three years edited Le Revolte, which, after suppression and a rebirth in Paris as La Revolte, was to become the best-known and longest-lived Anarchist journal. His stream of convincing and passionate polemics, the prestige of his escape from the most dreaded Russian prison, his active work with the Swiss Anarchists of the Jura - which caused his expulsion from Switzerland - all topped by his title of Prince, made him Bakunin's recognized successor."
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Feb 22, 2013 Martin rated it 4 of 5 stars

It is more a portrait of Britain, the U.S., France, Russia and Germany before the war. Little attention is paid to the middle or far east, though Japan's wars, the Boxer Rebellion, and the idea of a Jewish state are briefly mentioned. I gained a greater understanding of anarchism and its relation to the evolving forms of government, the breakthroughs in the arts, and of course, socialism. As a movement, there are some basic tenets of anarchism that make sense, although its world view is very bla...more It is more a portrait of Britain, the U.S., France, Russia and Germany before the war. Little attention is paid to the middle or far east, though Japan's wars, the Boxer Rebellion, and the idea of a Jewish state are briefly mentioned. I gained a greater understanding of anarchism and its relation to the evolving forms of government, the breakthroughs in the arts, and of course, socialism. As a movement, there are some basic tenets of anarchism that make sense, although its world view is very black and white: people in power are bad, so if they are removed the oppressed people can create a utopian community. In practice, it attracted a lot of unstable people, and some rulers were assassinated who were down with the common man: President McKinley, Empress Elizabeth of Austria, and Tsar Alexander II. The mind reels at how the 20th might have gone in a completely different direction had Russia been allowed to form a constitutional monarchy similar to Britain's. The book also describes quite elegantly the difference between the mindsets of governing Britons vs. Americans, namely that the British aristocracy is better suited to rule because they do not need to make a name or fortune for themselves, and thus their intentions should be pure. Not that this necessarily works in practice, because there is then a built-in resistance to change, but I respect the idea behind it. Certainly the U.S. has no better ideas, as throughout all my history lessons I continue to marvel at how dysfunctional the United States congress tends to be. From this book I learned about one of our most powerful Speakers of the House, Thomas Reed, and how he affected significant change in procedure to prevent stalemate in contentious matters. The book discussed composer Richard Strauss ad nauseum. I supposed his groundbreaking work was supposed to represent artistic upheavals of the period, and also gives of a slice of German life. I would have preferred more than a cursory glance at the Arts and Crafts movement, but oh well. I also got exhausted by the Dreyfus Affair, but I understand why that was such a big deal, and it touched on various political and artistic impulses in the Third Republic. The author's central argument is that the idea of a Belle Epoque, is based on people's recollections after WWI, and that anyone writing during the two decades before the war only recounted discord and upheaval. Everyone was merrily dancing their way to hell.
Anyway, not bad for a history book written as many years ago from today (it was published in 1966) as it was from its subject then.(less)

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Jul 13, 2012 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars

A look at the years leading up to WWI -- the end of the Edwardian age, a great deal about the rise of Socialism, a look at high culture in Europe, the crazed arming and bellicosity of Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II, and a surprising effort for world peace by Czar Nicholas of Russia.

The book looks at the years purposefully without any hindsight from the WWI experience. Her thought was that no one knew WWI would do what it did to society, and a look at the era should reflect that. Interesting, b...more

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May 24, 2012 Dan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

This is another outstanding book by Barbara Tuchman. It paints a vivid and fascinating picture of the world in the period before World War 1. I think she manages to avoid the obvious danger of seeing everything through the lens created by our modern perspective, knowing, as we do now, that the War was coming and that it would change everything about the world forever. The descriptions of society in Britain, the US, and in particular France (I found the in-depth explanation of the Dreyfus affair...more

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Mar 11, 2012 Clif rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a book that I read many years ago, liked enough to keep and have now had time to re-read.

Though we think of our own time as one of great change, there was a feeling in the air at the end of the 19th century that will never again be experienced. It was a combination of innocence, wonder and anxiety produced by capitalism as technology and industry recreated the world.

The innocence came from a still powerful religious sense along with a strong idea of how things should be. But the lives pe...more This is a book that I read many years ago, liked enough to keep and have now had time to re-read.

Though we think of our own time as one of great change, there was a feeling in the air at the end of the 19th century that will never again be experienced. It was a combination of innocence, wonder and anxiety produced by capitalism as technology and industry recreated the world.

The innocence came from a still powerful religious sense along with a strong idea of how things should be. But the lives people were living were not what tradition had provided before. Hard work didn't necessarily bring anything beyond more hard work. What was a man when at the mercy of machines? There could be no going back, yet the future looked very dim for those who toiled under the dictates of the factory system.

The small but rapidly growing middle class of owners was usurping the status of the landed gentry, so things didn't look good from the top down or the bottom up. Yet the wealth being gathered by the merchants and colonizers created an irrepressible energy whose wondrous output dazzled everyone.

The Proud Tower approaches the period from several points of view to give us the feel of fabulous wealth, terrible deprivation, political ambition, visions of social transformation, national pride and imperialism.

Tuchman takes us into European parliaments and Congress as governments and palaces struggle to deal with changes over which they have limited control. We also go into the workings of the Marxists and anarchists who dream of coming change while differing on whether to simply wait for it to happen, push it into being, or cooperate with the capitalist system to bring modifications that could improve the lives of the working people. Vivid personal portraits and strong opinions profoundly expressed give the pulse of humanity.

We go to the symphony and opera to feel the power of emotion expressed in the wildly romantic works of Richard Strauss, the supreme artist of the day. I was inspired to run out and get his opera, Salome, on CD at the library to hear what Tuchman so vividly describes. And we read of the work of Nijinsky, Nietzsche and Wilde as they shock the sensibilities of the time.

Of course, readers know that the period will end at the start of WW1, but this book does such a great job of recreating the pre-war atmosphere that the disillusion the war brought, with mechanized killing splashing the blood of millions on the hopes that had been kindled, can be more fully appreciated.(less)

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Dec 19, 2011 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

THE PROUD TOWER. (1966). Barbara W. Tuchman. ****.
In this highly researched and very readable book, the author examines what was going on in several countries just prior to WW I. Although she claims that other countries could have been picked, she decided on the final grouping using no real set of criteria other than interest to the general reader. “This book is an attempt to discover the quality of the world from which the Great War came...I have tried to concentrate on society rather than the...more

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May 30, 2011 Joe rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

Here is one more example of the fine legacy of very readable histories that Barbara Tuchman left us. It features her talent for making historical periods that might seem somewhat obscure to the average non-history buff both interesting and emotionally engaging. She's a fine author to perk the interest of any reader, including the one's who had trouble staying awake during History 101.

Structurally speaking, it is less a single book than eight topical articles under a single cover. Each chapter is...more

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Apr 21, 2009 Patrick Gibson rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: history aficionados

Recommended to Patrick by: NPR, of course

Shelves: history, truth_sort-of

1850 is my favorite year. What? You don’t have a favorite year? Sure you do. It is the one you picked during the late night drunken college game of ‘What If You Could Go Back in Time Where and When Would You Go?’ I could waver a little on my date. 1849 or 1851 would be all right. And I’d have to land somewhere in Europe. Wagner, Beethoven, Brahms, Berlioz, Balzac, Hardy, Flaubert, Monet, Manet, et. al. where clustered either at the beginning or the end of their lives and the great Romantic Age c...more 1850 is my favorite year. What? You don’t have a favorite year? Sure you do. It is the one you picked during the late night drunken college game of ‘What If You Could Go Back in Time Where and When Would You Go?’ I could waver a little on my date. 1849 or 1851 would be all right. And I’d have to land somewhere in Europe. Wagner, Beethoven, Brahms, Berlioz, Balzac, Hardy, Flaubert, Monet, Manet, et. al. where clustered either at the beginning or the end of their lives and the great Romantic Age crashed into the Industrial Revolution rushing pell-mell into the Modern Age. It was a great apotheosis of the arts. Did I mention Wagner? He’s my man, you know. Anywhere you turned brilliance abounded.

This past week on Bill McGlaughlins classical music program (NPR) his subject was primarily Richard Strauss (a God in the pantheon of Post Romantic composers) and his contemporaries. The name of the series was ‘The Proud Tower’ and between selections he read wonderful quotes. Assuming everyone knew what he was talking about he bypassed an explanation so it wasn’t until the third program the little light came on in my diffuse brain that the quotes and title were the same. At that point I still had no clue ‘The Proud Tower’ was by Barbara Tuchman whose only book I’d read was ‘The Distant Mirror.’ I was 20 and promptly dropped her from my litany of authors I want to pursue.

While ‘The Proud Tower’ doesn’t fit my favorite year category, it comes close. The subtitle is ‘A Portrait of the World Before the War 1890—1914. I tracked a copy down at Darns & Sloeble (they claimed there wasn’t a copy in stock and yet there it was on the shelf; so much for computers).

I absolutely marvel at historians. To be so obsessive and methodical with research is beyond my comprehension. Yet, there it all is. Tuchman encompasses the political, social, literary and artistic world before the Great War clearly and concisely. It was an age when titled land owners were coming to and end. Socialism was blossoming from the murk of industrialization. Composers and authors were rebelling against form. Other than the Boar War, the world was at peace. It was a fascinating time. There’s a lot to be covered, thus the 462 pages, but her writing is imminently readable and she has a crystalline way of tying people and events together. If you like history, it doesn’t get any better than this. Even if you don’t—there is an entire chapter on Richard Strauss. Pure heaven.
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Jul 15, 2012 Owen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: ww1, politics, military-history, non-fiction

Barbara Tuchman is a very good writer of history. It's one of those situations in which you thank the Lord, or somebody, that this particular person decided to go ahead in this particular direction. I don't know if just anyone will enjoy "The Proud Tower," since it deals with a very precise period in history, the Victorian Age in Britain, or the time leading up to the First World War. However, for me Tuchman's book, while not actually revelatory (her book on the origins of W. W. I - "The Guns of...more

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Jul 23, 2012 Ann Mcelligott rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, non-fiction

A fascinating picture of the world prior to World War I. Each chapter is a vignette exploring a particular era, a political movement or a country. It begins by examining the governing aristocracy in England and then jumps to a portrait of the anarchy movement throughout Europe and the US. Most fascinating to me was the detailed examination of the Dreyfus affair in France which divided French citizens and paralyzed the government and the country. This event in history is well known by title, but...more

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Jun 24, 2010 Trevor rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

We humans like to think that there are single moments in our lives and in history around which the rest of history pivots. The point of these pivots is that they explain not only what comes after, but (and not unlike my new reading glasses) also snaps into focus all that went before. Suddenly the world makes sense. Strangely enough I don't think this was the experience the world had with the First World War – although it probably ought to have been. The war was so terrible (in the sense of strik...more We humans like to think that there are single moments in our lives and in history around which the rest of history pivots. The point of these pivots is that they explain not only what comes after, but (and not unlike my new reading glasses) also snaps into focus all that went before. Suddenly the world makes sense. Strangely enough I don't think this was the experience the world had with the First World War – although it probably ought to have been. The war was so terrible (in the sense of striking terror in all who witnessed it) that rather than putting a clarifying lens on what had come before, it instead put rose coloured glasses on the nose of the world and people could only look back in wonder at what they now knew had been a golden age. ‘Beware golden ages’ is probably as good a motto for a historian as any other I can think up and so that can be the epigraph for this review.

This is a fascinatingly interesting book discussing a fascinatingly interesting time. As she says at the start, it wouldn’t be too hard to write another book on the same period and do much the same thing as she has done here without touching on any of the subjects discussed in this particuar book. Tuchman gives us a flavour of the world in the years before the war and that helps us to get an understanding of why the war might have happened in ways that were later hidden by the rose coloured glass of what became our collective memories.

This too is a period which I thought I knew things about, but one of the things I’ve found is that the interest in history is either increased or destroyed by detail. Here the detail brings to life the period and makes sense of what I had heard bits and pieces about previously, but only in sketches no bigger than thumb-nail size, rather than the lovely detail presented here.

The Dreyfus Affair is an interesting case in point. I’ve known of this since my teens, I have known it centred around a Jewish military officer who had been falsely accused of something and that people nearly tore the country apart due to the injustice of the case. I knew Zola had written J’accuse, something I’ve always planned to read. I also know that Lenin referred to the case as proving that the revolution may not come about due to economic crisis, but due to political crisis. All this I knew, but what he had been accused of, why the case was so dramatic, what social forces were aligned on which sides and why, even the link to Germany in the case and how transfixed not only France, but the world became with the case, all that I knew virtually nothing at all.

There is also a wonderful discussion on the young Wilhelm II of Germany that is remarkably interesting, particularly given his role later in the rush towards war. But for the rest of this review I am going to look at an idea from this book review http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... and how it fits with the problems for the Socialist movement in these pre-War years.

The distinction between hope and despair is an interesting one, although as I've thought about it I’m starting to think it might not be a very useful distinction. They sound a bit like opposites, hope and despair, but are they really? What is the use of hope if it is not based on despair and can despair lead to anything other than suicide if there is no hope? The problems facing the socialists at the turn of the last century were not all that different from these questions. There is a nice line in the book where two socialists are walking down a street and one stops to put a coin in the plate of a beggar, to which his companion chides him for helping to delay the revolution. Here is the great schism in the left – the purists who saw Capitalism as an evil incapable of reform that needed to be violently removed from the face of the earth, and the reformers who saw any incremental improvement in the welfare of the working class as being justifiable on its own account. To be honest, both sides of this are equally obsessed with hope and despair – both were witnesses of the current despair, both hoped to improve the lot of those suffering, both saw the other as offering a false hope. Either a false hope in incremental improvement or a false hope in final and complete revolution. Both could look on in contempt at the other for betraying either the immediate or the long term welfare of those they sought to relieve.

It is a rare thing indeed to hear people talk of social revolution today. This is something that has been left to small groups of alienated young people at university campuses, young people who, ironically enough, spend time at university to ensure they move as far from the classes they would ‘assist’ as they possibly can. This is quite a change, as prior to the war these acrimonious debates rent the movement in twain and the effects on the movement could still be felt well into the 1970s.

And this is where I would like to say something about the benefits of history – what can we learn from history? I guess the first thing is that history is a series of competing narratives – just as this book is about the socialist movement tearing itself apart at the start of the last century it is also about the Anarchists preparing bombs to spark the revolution as it is about politicians and kings and businessmen and artists all seeking to leave their mark on the world and on history.

But what can we say about hope and despair? Is one more a benefit than the other? Are they alternate faces on the same coin? And what about today? I guess it would be easy, if a little simpleminded, to say that the reformers won and the revolutionaries brought about horrors even worse than those they sought to replace. I say ‘simpleminded’ as I often wonder if the Russian people would have had any better a time of it if the Capitalist revolution at the start of 1917 had been successful. The ‘collectivisation of farms’ would have still needed to happen, just as it needed to happen in the rest of Europe and America – just that rather than the Kulaks being blamed and punished during this process, they would have been the ones being made rich.

In equal measure there is hope and despair to be learnt from history. We can equally well show we learn and learn nothing from her pages. In whichever way you want to look at history – as a great teacher leading to the possibility of a brighter world or as Cassandra, bitterly ignored – a voice well worth listening to is Tuchman’s, another excellent book.
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Apr 20, 2013 Shawn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this in the 70s and loved it then. I still found it very worthwhile in 2013. Tuchman, of course, is not an academic, but her style makes her more readable than most of those who are and allows her to create a vivid portrait of the world before the deluge, including the United States as it abandoned the vision of most of the founders and embarked on the journey to empire. And there are at least bibliographies and notes (tied to page numbers) for each chapter, at the end of the book for the...more

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Jul 04, 2011 Ross rated it 3 of 5 stars

This work is certainly just as well researched and written as "The Guns of August" but I can only give it 3 stars because the history of the period is simply not that interesting to me. In fact I was basicaly totaly ignorant of the period probably because I never saw any reason to read about the period. No great events, etc.
I was interested to learn much more about the Dreyfus affair, but it is very sad of course. I was horrified to learn that both major party candidates ran for president in 189...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Glyn Longden rated it 5 of 5 stars

Rating: 8.5/10. History doesn't get much better than this. First, and foremost, Barbara Tuchman is a great writer; secondly, she's a great historian. I've read hundreds of books in my life where the author is a great historian but a lousy writer. Tuchman makes history come alive. The first chapter in this book, called 'The Patricians' is a marvellously entertaining tour through the English class system of1895; she details the life of privilege the members of cabinet in Lord Salisbury's governmen...more

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Jan 25, 2009 Diane rated it 5 of 5 stars

This excellent history of the years leading up to World War I looks at the underlying cultural changes that were occuring at the time. The books provides descriptions of both the haves and have-nots of the era, as well as probing the ways in which those at the bottom of the social scale were challenging their position. The author provides a lot of insight into many of the cultural and political movements of the era that are now largely forgotten, but this helps the reader to gain a better unders...more

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May 11, 2013 Jonathan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Not really a portrait but a series of portraits of the pre-WW1 world. Rereading the introduction the author states that on getting to the end she could have written the book twice more with completely different material, so, as such, it is not a good over view. Apparently the book was written originally a a series of essays then compiled into a book and this shows. I enjoyed learning about the Dreyfus affair in France, the incredible amount of detail was a good indicator of the complexity of Fre...more

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Jan 30, 2012 Brennan Molina rated it 3 of 5 stars

What Tuchman aims for here is achieved, though I don't know if that makes it good. This might be more accurate if it wasn't called a portrait but a collage. Characters and countries become more numerous and less defined as the book moves forward. There seems to be, culminating in the final chapter an attempt to cover everything which makes it hard to (at least it did for me) keep everything straight.

Given that these were people who had a real history, it might be the case that Tuchman thought b...more

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Dec 29, 2010 Clif Hostetler rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

Barbara Tuchman is a widely respected historian, and I have always assumed I'd get around to reading all her books some day (I read two of her books in my pre- Goodreads.com days). I had not previously read The Proud Tower probably because the era prior to World War I is of limited interest to me. Things changed recently when Ken Follett came out with his book, Fall of Giants, and a book group I belong to decided to read, Edith Wharton's book The Age of Innocence. These are both fictional storie...more

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Dec 17, 2009 Kent rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

I'm hesitating between a simple recommendation: "This was tremendous. Go forth and read ye likewise," and a more voluminous splatter of opinions and unhelpful comments.

No, actually, I'm not hesitating. The choice is simple.

Tuchman's object is to reveal the last decade or two of the Christendom, its pillars and its dynamiters. She covers the magnificent aristocracy of England in the first chapter. In their contempt of ideology the House of Lords were very Burkean, and incidentally reminded me a g...more I'm hesitating between a simple recommendation: "This was tremendous. Go forth and read ye likewise," and a more voluminous splatter of opinions and unhelpful comments.

No, actually, I'm not hesitating. The choice is simple.

Tuchman's object is to reveal the last decade or two of the Christendom, its pillars and its dynamiters. She covers the magnificent aristocracy of England in the first chapter. In their contempt of ideology the House of Lords were very Burkean, and incidentally reminded me a great deal of the aristocratical/agrarian society advocated in "I'll Take My Stand." (This kind of society really did exist once. For almost a thousand years, in fact.)

But in the midst of the Edenic garden of the British peers lurked a (you guessed it) snake. Sssss. Viz., the commoners were disposed to be fractious at this point in history, owing to discontent with grueling hours, cruel treatment, and hellish living conditions. The reaction to these wrongs is covered in Tuchman's chapters on Anarchism and Socialism.

In fact, by this time all of Christendom was in tension between two opposite ways of life. The aristocracy had come into existence in the Middle Ages, assuming naturally the role of governing over (and for) the lower classes. As feudalism goes, they carried out their role of protection and provision that the lower classes desperately needed, and in return the peasants gave them loyalty and service.

When the industrial revolution and the rise of the middle class came along, the stable system of peasantry, after a millennia or more, disappeared. They were drawn from the farm to the factory, and there enslaved to a degree unimaginable in centuries past.

Allured by wealth, the aristocrats abdicated their role of protection. They endeavored to reap the benefits of industrialism without suffering its consequences. They embraced the smoke and gears that brought them wealth, and in due time the filth and mechanicry destroyed their green fields and organic institutions. They supped with the devil, and their spoon was too short.

The imbalance between the Edenic gardens of the nobles and the infernal machinery of the cities was too great. Something had to give, and it did. Prophets of doom like Marx sounded the trumpet, and laborers by the thousands joined the standard of Socialism. They marched, denounced, rioted, and struck. More sinster yet were the Anarchists. They bombed, stabbed, and shot in heroical efforts to ring in the millennium of communism and fraternity. It seemed like all of Europe was facing a French Revolution that could only end it revolt and death.

Oddly enough, it didn't happen. "The worker" Marx said, "has no Fatherland." Actually, he did. Nationalism proved stronger than socialism. Kaiser's messianic blustering, the inferiority complex of the French--Britain's blind conservatism, and America's secular millennialism, actually destroyed Christendom. When the guns of August roared, the international workers of the world found the pull of the Fatherland was stronger, after all. Swamped in stupid pride, like Cadmus's army raised from dragon's teeth, the nations of Europe fell on each other and fought till they were dead.

And we, like Cadmus, wait hopefully for a remnant of five to found a new civilisation.(less)

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Dec 31, 2012 Jc rated it 4 of 5 stars

B.Tuckman was one of the great popularizers of history in the late 20th century. Her works, which cover a variety of topics, are readable for a general public who wants to know about history, but whose grounding in serious history is limited. At the same time, she has enough detail and discussion to make them good reads for more those more experienced in the study of actual history. This particular work is a very special and well written, detailed discussion of the world's transition from contro...more

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Jul 23, 2010 J rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Hurrah for Barbara Tuchman! You history buffs will enjoy her in-depth portrayal of the not-often studied period in history from the 1890's to World War I. She does a fabulous job of incorporating ordinary details (what someone wore, what someone said) to make historical events and people come to life. Learn about the anarchist movement, Thomas B. Reed of Maine, Teddy Roosevelt, Manifest Destiny, and so much more -- and how war was inevitable no matter what happened. Tuchman has wonderful insight...more

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Jun 01, 2013 CD rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, read-in-2013

Tuchman's eight long form essays are a must read as an element in understanding the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries that led to 'the Great War'. The writer grasps and transmits concisely the role of socialism and anarchy to the general unrest and global psychosis that would erupt in August 1914 and bring the entirety of the world to the first step in global destruction. An often quoted and referenced historian, Barbara Tuchman draws a political and historical image of the fam...more

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Feb 16, 2013 Maureen M rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

I've had this book for several years, but didn't get to it until the BBC's "Downtown Abbey" got me curious about the landed generation of Britain before WWI. Barbara Tuchman describes the patrician class of the Granthams as the Industrial Revolution challenges the old world order. But she goes well beyond that -- to Germany, France, Russia and the U.S. -- to illustrate how capitalists, socialists and nations steadily tilted toward a ghastly war. An amazing work of history, somewhat dense in part...more

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Mar 11, 2012 Kerrie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, non-fiction, world-war-1, overdrive

Tuchman provides a well-rounded portrait of the major players in the 24 years before WWI. It's not all history and political science, but more of a look at the frame of mind of every country before all that shit went down in Sarajevo. Much of the book focused on the role that the socialists played during that time in England, France, the United States, Germany, and Russia. Much of the book focuses on France, particularly the Dreyfus Affair (something I previously didn't know much about, but she...more

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Dec 16, 2010 Elizabeth rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved Tuchman's The Guns of August, and so I began this book with high expectations. This book exceeded my expectations. Tuchman's fascinating portrayal of the interplay between society, politics and cultural life in Europe (she touches briefly on the US as well) during the years leading up to WW I is both enlightening and engrossing. My favorite chapters were "The Patricians" about the twilight years of the traditional English upper class and "Neroism is in the Air" about the interplay betwee...more

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Aug 20, 2012 Molly rated it 5 of 5 stars

I was assigned this for class reading for European History senior year of high school. I loved it, and it led me to search out her other books. I find her scholarship and her writing captivating. She brings history alive for me and makes me want to know more about what she's writing. And she make me realize how important it is that we don't forget history - that we are never going to progress beyond it if we don't make an effort to improve on the mistakes of the past. And she does all that while...more

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Dec 26, 2011 Gary Maunder rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If you think the war on terror is anew phenomenon, read this study of pre-world war one culture and politics. Tuchman stops at the outbreak of the war because her purpose is to bring to life the era which lead up it - what forces contributed to it and what represented the end of once era and the begonning of a new one. Anarchism, socialism, syndicalism and the rise of trade unions are all placed against the background of an enormously wealthy aristocracy whose ethics of service in public adminis...more

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May 19, 2010 Kim rated it 2 of 5 stars

It's not a bad book. It describes very well the deepening/widening gulf between the landed aristocracy and the general public and the struggles precipitated by the industrial revolution. In this sense it was an excellent counterpoint to "George, Nicholas and Wilhelm," which focused mainly on the royals. There is just soooo much in here and some of it did not interest me, primarily the sections on music and theater, that at times it dragged on with lesser known names and deeds. Probably worth a s...more

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May 25, 2013 Mikey B. rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book consists of eight sections, or as the title suggests – portraits. They are uneven in scope and not that inter-connected.

One of the strongest ones is on the Dreyfus affair in France and it is full of passion as one would expect. Ms. Tuchman gives a stupendous view of the colliding forces at work. There is also one chapter on the Anarchist movement with an intriguing analysis of these rather eccentric and misguided people. The last chapter is on “International Communism” with a good expo...more

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About Barbara W. Tuchman

Barbara Wertheim Tuchman was an American self-trained historian and author. She became best known for The Guns of August, a history of the prelude and first month of World War I.

As an author, Tuchman focused on producing popular history. Her clear, dramatic storytelling covered topics as diverse as the 14th century and World War I, and sold millions of copies.

More about Barbara W. Tuchman...

Books by Barbara W. Tuchman

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam

Stilwell and the American Experience in China 1911-45

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“The proud tower built up through the great age of European civilization was an edifice of grandeur and passion, of riches and beauty and dark cellars. Its inhabitants lived, as compared to a later time, with more self-reliance, more confidence, more hope; greater magnificence, extravagance and elegance; more careless ease, more gaiety, more pleasure in each other's company and conversation, more injustice and hypocrisy, more misery and want, more sentiment including false sentiment, less sufferance of mediocrity, more dignity in work, more delight in nature, more zest. The Old World had much that has since been lost, whatever may have been gained. Looking back on it from 1915, Emile Verhaeren, the Belgian Socialist poet, dedicated his pages, "With emotion, to the man I used to be.” — 1 person liked it

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