"The Proud Tower"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses and reviews Barbara Tuchman's book, "The Proud Tower." It assesses how Tuchman handles the twenty-four year period in Europe which preceded the Great War. The paper specifically examines Tuchman's writing style. Finally, it analyzes her failing to make the linkage between the horrific events of late summer 1914 and the Bismarckian diplomacy, which helped to make the great conflagration inevitable.

From the Paper:

"As a final comment upon the book, it should be added that the text, while it does passably well at describing the state of affairs in each of the major nations, never really explores the ugly situation in the Balkans - principally between Serbia and Austria, but also between each of the Balkan states. As a result, the internal divisions which were tearing apart what was left of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire by 1914 (and which certainly helped precipitate war) are given "short shrift" in the text. This oversight, at least in the view of this writer, diminishes Tuchman's chapter on the European and American anarchists (63-117) insofar as an exposition of the problems facing the Austrians as they clung to the remnants of empire would have given the novice reader a greater understanding of what socio-political dynamics made a hate-filled and destructive (and anti-government) movement like the Black Hand (and others) so appealing to disenchanted Serbians and to disenchanted young Eastern Europeans in general."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Tuchman, Barbara. The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World before the War: 1890-1914. New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1966.

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