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2013 Book Review #108: The Proud Tower
Title: The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War 1890-1914
Author: Barbara Tuchman
Genre: Early 20th C History
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: A somewhat random accounting of Things That Happened before WWI.
Thoughts: Back in high school (not for high school, just during), I read A Distant Mirror and was very impressed. So when I saw this on the shelf at the library, I snagged it.
This is...an odd book. On the paragraph level, the writing is first rate. The scholarship is excellent. But the overall book is rather disjointed. There's no overarching thesis or storyline, so it ends up just being "here are some things that were important that happened in some countries that were important in this time span". Each chapter deals with a thing centered in a specific country, whether it be the decline of the aristocracy in England, the political career of the Speaker of the House in the US, or culture in Germany. It claims to be a portrait of the world, and some light is shed on some world events. But there's nothing about Africa, the Middle East, Australia, South America, or most of Asia except in how it touches political battles in Washington over the Spanish-American war in the Philippines. If meant to show the lead-up to World War I, I would have thought Japan should at least merit a chapter. It's also more English-centric than its billing suggests, but I'll forgive that as a fault endemic to most historians, who view things through their country's lens.
The chapters are wildly uneven. That first one, about English aristocrats, just feels like a random assortment of trivia about minor British statesmen. In the middle, the book hits its stride with chapters such as France's (on the Dreyfus affair) that tell a coherent story in an illuminating way. It falters again towards the end, though.
I wish there had been some sense of why these specific incidents were chosen. Out of all the political battles, brush fire wars, cultural events, why these specific ones? What do these reveal about the world in general? Tuchman does a marvelous job of showing instead of telling, but perhaps just a little bit of telling would have been in order.
Author: Barbara Tuchman
Genre: Early 20th C History
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: A somewhat random accounting of Things That Happened before WWI.
Thoughts: Back in high school (not for high school, just during), I read A Distant Mirror and was very impressed. So when I saw this on the shelf at the library, I snagged it.
This is...an odd book. On the paragraph level, the writing is first rate. The scholarship is excellent. But the overall book is rather disjointed. There's no overarching thesis or storyline, so it ends up just being "here are some things that were important that happened in some countries that were important in this time span". Each chapter deals with a thing centered in a specific country, whether it be the decline of the aristocracy in England, the political career of the Speaker of the House in the US, or culture in Germany. It claims to be a portrait of the world, and some light is shed on some world events. But there's nothing about Africa, the Middle East, Australia, South America, or most of Asia except in how it touches political battles in Washington over the Spanish-American war in the Philippines. If meant to show the lead-up to World War I, I would have thought Japan should at least merit a chapter. It's also more English-centric than its billing suggests, but I'll forgive that as a fault endemic to most historians, who view things through their country's lens.
The chapters are wildly uneven. That first one, about English aristocrats, just feels like a random assortment of trivia about minor British statesmen. In the middle, the book hits its stride with chapters such as France's (on the Dreyfus affair) that tell a coherent story in an illuminating way. It falters again towards the end, though.
I wish there had been some sense of why these specific incidents were chosen. Out of all the political battles, brush fire wars, cultural events, why these specific ones? What do these reveal about the world in general? Tuchman does a marvelous job of showing instead of telling, but perhaps just a little bit of telling would have been in order.
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