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.
book civilization literature-history
Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled.
reason heard presumption
When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must presumption rule.
years ideas humanity
The ills and disorders of the 14th century could not be without consequence. Times were to grow worse over the next fifty-odd years until at some imperceptible moment, by the some mysterious chemistry, energies were refreshed, ideas broke out of the mold of the Middle Ages into new realms, and humanity found itself redirected.
war years unity
The Hundred Years' War, like the crises of the Church in the same period, broke apart medieval unity.
believe historical atheism
It is wiser, I believe, to arrive at theory by way of evidence rather than the other way around.... It is more rewarding, in any case, to assemble the facts first and, in the process of arranging them in narrative form, to discover a theory or a historical generalization emerging of its own accord.
yesterday errors forever
bureaucracy, safely repeating today what it did yesterday, rolls on as ineluctably as some vast computer, which, once penetrated by error, duplicates it forever.
communism communist myth
The costliest myth of our time has been the myth of the Communist monolith.
differences conflict planets
The better part of valor is to spend it learning to live with differences, however hostile, unless and until we can find another planet.
power men folly
Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others - only to lose it over themselves.
government pursuit periods
A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests.
history completeness
Completeness is rare in history ...
history people poetry
The poets have familiarized more people with history than have the historians ...
history smoking hot
To rush in upon an event before its significance has had time to separate from the surrounding circumstances may be enterprising, but is it useful? ... The recent prevalence of these hot histories on publishers' lists raises the question: Should - or perhaps can - history be written while it is still smoking?