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
hurt loss law
It hurt the economic historians, the Marxists and the fabians, to admit that the Ten Hour Bill, the basic piece of 19th century legislation, came down from the top, out of aa nobleman's private feelings about the Gospel, or that the abolition of the slave trade was achieved, not through the operation of some "law" of profit and loss, but peurlet as the result of tyhe new humanitarianism of the Evangelicals.
art ideas christianity
Christianity in its ideas was never the art of the possible.
pain emotion century
[T]he obverse of facile emotion in the 14th century was a general insensitivity to the spectacle of pain and death.
attention should reader
The writer's object is - or should be - to hold the reader's attention.
views years disease
Modern historians have suggested that in his last years he (Richard II) was overtaken by mental disease, but that is only a modern view of the malfunction common to 14th century rulers: inability to inhibit impulse.
government faces easier
Governments do not like to face radical remedies; it is easier to let politics predominate.
common authority should
If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.
firsts garments legitimacy
To put on the garment of legitimacy is the first aim of every coup.
self numbers church
Voluntary self-directed religion was more dangerous to the Church than any number of infidels.
ideas earth medieval
If all were equalized by death, as the medieval idea constantly emphasized, was it not possible that inequalities on earth were contrary to the will of God?
people relief reform
For most people reform meant relief from ecclesiastical extortions.
sex reality doctrine
Doctrine tied itself into infinite knots over the realities of sex.
peace history historical
In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.
friendship roots common
Friendship of a kind that cannot easily be reversed tomorrow must have its roots in common interests and shared beliefs.