Barbara Tuchman
Barbara Tuchman
Barbara Wertheim Tuchmanwas an American historian and author. She won the Pulitzer Prize twice, for The Guns of August, a best-selling history of the prelude to and the first month of World War I, and Stilwell and the American Experience in China, a biography of General Joseph Stilwell...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth30 January 1912
CountryUnited States of America
eyebrows female habit
No female iniquity was more severely condemned [in the 14th century] than the habit of plucking eyebrows and the hairline to heighten the forehead.
confusion heirs absence
Of all the ills that our poor ... society is heir to, the focal one, it seems to me, from which so much of our uneasiness and confusion derive, is the absence of standards.
history completeness
Completeness is rare in history ...
attention should reader
The writer's object is - or should be - to hold the reader's attention.
reality satire exaggeration
satire is a wrapping of exaggeration around a core of reality.
tragedy development facts
The fact of being reported increases the apparent extent of a deplorable development by a factor of ten.
capitalist-economy usury sin
No economic activity was more irrepressible [in the 14th century] than the investment and lending at interest of money; it was the basis for the rise of the Western capitalist economy and the building of private fortunes-and it was based on the sin of usury.
responsibility omnipotence america
In April 1917 the illusion of isolation was destroyed, America came to the end of innocence, and of the exuberant freedom of bachelor independence. That the responsibilities of world power have not made us happier is no surprise. To help ourselves manage them, we have replaced the illusion of isolation with a new illusion of omnipotence.
country taken negative
In a country where misery and want were the foundation of the social structure, famine was periodic, death from starvation common, disease pervasive, thievery normal, and graft and corruption taken for granted, the elimination of these conditions in Communist China is so striking that negative aspects of the new rule fade in relative importance.
war ambition race
Misgovernment is of four kinds, often in combination. They are: 1) tyranny or oppression, of which history provides so many well-known examples that they do not need citing; 2) excessive ambition, such as Athens' attempted conquest of Sicily in the Peloponnesian War, Philip II's of England via the Armada, Germany's twice-attempted rule of Europe by a self-conceived master race, Japan's bid for an empire of Asia; 3) incompetence or decadence, as in the case of the late Roman empire, the last Romanovs and the last imperial dynasty of China; and finally 4) folly or perversity.
desire argument found
Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.
kings hero knowing
Belgium, where there occurred one of the rare appearances of the hero in history, was lifted above herself by the uncomplicated conscience of her King and, faced with the choice to acquiesce or resist, took less than three hours to make her decision, knowing it might be mortal.
males female sin
Theology being the work of males, original sin was traced to the female.
elements eras sides
One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.