Barbara Tuchman

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Barbara Wertheim Tuchman (January 30, 1912 – February 6, 1989) was an American historian and author, and became best known for The Guns of August, a history of the prelude and first month of World War I.

Tuchman, daughter of a banker Maurice Wertheim and granddaughter of Henry Morgenthau Sr., Woodrow Wilson's Ambassador to Turkey, received her BA from Radcliffe College in 1933 and worked as a journalist for a number of years before turning to writing books.

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.

Tuchman was the author of books which aspired to be more popular than the established classics of the field. Inventing the Middle Ages by Norman Cantor, a history of medieval historians, describes her work in context.

[edit] Partial List of Works

• The Lost British Policy: Britain and Spain since 1700. A book about British policy in Spain and the western Mediterranean, 1938
• Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour: a book about English involvement in Palestine over the centuries, 1956.
• The Zimmermann Telegram: The Zimmermann telegram in early 1917 was a key incident involving Germany and Mexico that helped provoke the USA into entering World War I, 1958
• The Guns of August (also published as August 1914) details the military decisions and actions that occurred leading up to and during the first month of World War I. The book that established her reputation. 1962
• The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914. Covers the hesitant rise of U.S. imperialism, anarchist assassinations, socialism and communism and the devolution of the 19th century order in Europe and North America. 1966
• Stilwell and the American Experience in China: a biography of Joseph Stilwell, 1970.
• Notes from China, a Trip to China, 1972.
• A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century, a comparison and contrast between 14th century and modern Europe. 1978
• Practicing History: Selected essays on historical writing, political ambition, and the importance of reading history. Original essays published between 1935 and 1981. Book published 1981.
• The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam: A meditation on the historical recurrence of governments pursuing policies evidently contrary to their own interests. Focuses on Troy, the Renaissance Popes provoking Protestantism, the British losing their American colonies, and the United States loss in Vietnam. 1984
• The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution. 1988

She twice won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, first for The Guns of August and again for Stilwell and the American Experience in China.