Passage of the day - 27 Nov 2003 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Mephisto2 · 11-26-2003, 06:00 PM

The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman

Quote:

So gorgeous was the spectacle on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and blue and green and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes, and jewelled orders flashing in the sun. After them came five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens - four dowager and three regnant - and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned countries. Together they represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last. The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history's clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.

Thus opens perhaps one of the most famous and brilliant books on the First World War ever written. Barbara Tuchman, perhaps America's best historian, "was described in the press as a fifty-year-old housewife, a mother of three daughters, and the wife of a prominent New York physician."

It was an immediate success, thanks not least to Ms Tuchman's breathtaking prose, her grasp of the grand sweep of military and political events yet an eye for the human side of this terrible war. Basically a military history of the first month of the Great War that broke out in August, 1914, her book brought home to her audience like never before these terrible events, in lanugage both concise, descriptive and emotive, avoiding both hyperbole and dry or dense "facts and figures".

President Kennedy presented a copy to British Prime Minister Macmillan. The Pulitzer Prize committee, prohibited from awarding a prize for history on a non-American subject, awarded her a prize for non-fiction.

I love this book. I read a lot of history and it stands, if not alone, with the few historical works that appeal to both interested readers and the "general public."

Even if you are not a lover of history I heartedly recommend The Guns of August. It is far from Ms Tuchman's only work (The Proud Tower, The Zimmerman Telegram), but it is surely her most famous.

Read the passage again. She has an eery ability to make you visualize that grand affair. You feel almost as if you're there. You can see the procession, feel the crowds move foward craning their necks, hear the dull bass of the tolling bell... Finally she sets the scene for the inexorable march of progress. This marks the end of a era, she seems to tell us. From now on, things will be different. The world is changing. A terrible storm is gathering...

This book will not disappoint. Even if you don't read it, note that the above is a perfect example of that often elusive goal; a beuatifully written passage of English prose.

Mr Mephisto