Barbara W. Tuchman Puns

>After the incomplete victory of the Marne there followed the German retreat to the Aisne, the race to the sea for possession of the Channel ports, the fall of Antwerp, and the Battle of Ypres where officers and men of the BEF held their ground, fought literally until they died, and stopped the Germans in Flanders. Not Mons or the Marne but Ypres was the real monument to British valor, as well as the grave of four-fifths of the original BEF. After it, with the advent of winter, came the slow deadly sinking into the stalemate of trench warfare. Running from Switzerland to the Channel like a gangrenous wound across French and Belgian territory, the trenches determined the war of position and attrition, the brutal, mud-filled, murderous insanity known as the Western Front that was to last for four more years.
>
>[...]
>
>It was an error that could never be repaired. Failure of Plan 17 was as fatal as failure of the Schlieffen plan, and together they produced deadlock on the Western Front. Sucking up lives at a rate of 5,000 and sometimes 50,000 a day, absorbing munitions, energy, money, brains, and trained men, the Western Front ate up Allied war resources and predetermined the failure of back-door efforts like that of the Dardanelles which might otherwise have shortened the war. The deadlock, fixed by the failures of the first month, determined the future course of the war and, as a result, the terms of the peace, the shape of the interwar period, and the conditions of the Second Round.
>
>Men could not sustain a war of such magnitude and pain without hope— the hope that its very enormity would ensure that it could never happen again and the hope that when somehow it had been fought through to a resolution, the foundations of a better-ordered world would have been laid. Like the shimmering vision of Paris that kept Kluck’s soldiers on their feet, the mirage of a better world glimmered beyond the shell-pitted wastes and leafless stumps that had once been green fields and waving poplars. Nothing less could give dignity or sense to monstrous offensives in which thousands and hundreds of thousands were killed to gain ten yards and exchange one wet-bottomed trench for another. When every autumn people said it could not last through the winter, and when every spring there was still no end in sight, only the hope that out of it all some good would accrue to mankind kept men and nations fighting.
>
>After the Marne the wa

I’m reading it now, and while it’s pretty entertaining for its narrative, I’ve also read it wasn’t particularly well received among the academic community and I’m wondering what I should be looking for while I read.

This book almost took my breath away. It was like a fresh air of the dawn - cold, calming and smooth. Between almost dry books of non fiction it was such a juicy read. Highlighting the follies of our fellow humans in the constant humming of story makes this such a beautiful read. What do you think about the book ?

I’m a reenactor but my interest is mainly in the Napoleonic era, I’ve been trying to get more into WWI and I’m currently just starting to read The Guns of August to try and get a good sense of the early war . I posted this on social media and a cousin of mine who is a history undergrad commented that it’s a good book but not totally reliable and I should take it with a grain of salt. I’ve asked him to elaborate and he hasn’t gotten back to me yet, but I’m curious — what’s the problem with this book? Is it essentially right but just incomplete in light of new information like Gibbons’ The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, too subjective to be read as history like Carlyle’s History of the French Revolution, plainly falsified like the Short Course on the History of the All Union Communist Party (Bolshevik), just out of favor like the work of Lucien Febvre, or something else?

Over the past several years i've started to lean more and more into non-fiction, specifically history. From the books that i've read so far, with the only possible exception of William Manchester, I cannot seem to find any another history author on the same level as Ms. Tuchman.

Her books are almost a contradiction in the fact that they are both eminently readable (quite humorous even) but also convey a great deal of information doing credit to the staggering amount of research that she must have conducted to create them. I've devoured every book of hers that I have been able to lay my hands on with The Distant Mirror and the The Proud Tower ending up as my two favorites.

Can anyone out there suggest another historian that can produce these types of books that are both well researched and completely engrossing?

If anyone who loves history books has not read any of Ms. Tuchman's work I would highly, highly encourage it. I would recommend starting with The Guns of August, her most famous work. I would also highly recommend the audio version read by Wanda Macaddon!

Here is the quote: “Foiled of glory, [the Earl of] Nottingham took up the famous challenge of St. Ingelbert... offered to hold the lists against all comers in any form of combat for thirty days... He and his companions maintained the lists of St. Ingelbert with great courage...”

What is this challenge and what are its historical roots? Did it have anything to do with the saint himself? His Wikipedia page doesn’t have any mention of it.

So bear that in mind when you're getting kinda whiny about how long the next show is taking to come out. The guy is literally narrating full length audiobooks that he's authoring at this point in the HH career.

Is there any historical consensus on this event?