Word: tuchman
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...Barbara W. Tuchman...
...that a maritime salutation could set in motion events that altered the world would seem to require a well-stocked imagination and a keen dramatic instinct. Readers of The Guns of August (1962), The Proud Tower (1966) and A Distant Mirror (1978) have good reason to know that Barbara Tuchman possesses both in abundance. Yet she has never reduced history to simple causes and effects. Her books resemble jigsaw puzzles: start anywhere with any fragment and one can eventually assemble the whole...
...Tuchman's view of history is gravely classical. She is a tragedian who mounts the past against the fixed backdrop of human nature. Reason and goodwill exist but are like the stars in the heavens: flashes of enlightenment separated by vast expanses of darkness. "Halfway 'between truth and endless error,' " she concludes, "the mold of the species is permanent...
...those with such an eye to history, the garden represents a chance to create something that lasts. In the late Middle Ages, when plague ran rampant through Europe, explains Historian Barbara Tuchman, survivors feared that the wilderness would return because there would not be enough people alive to hold it back. "Gardening," she says, "is a ritual that responds to a desire in people to restore order." Even today she finds that the appeal of her own garden lies in a sense of permanence and renewal. "It says that everything is fine in the midst of chaos and bewilderment...
Despite her indignation, Himmelfarb does not want to suppress these new forms; what she opposes is their domination of the profession. Part of the profession, anyway: in the publishing marketplace, traditional history still fares quite well. In the work of historians as diverse as, say, Daniel Boorstin and Barbara Tuchman, the traditional practices of storytelling, political analysis and moral judgment are all flourishing. But if the fads of the new history continue to blight the academic scene, Himmelfarb argues, we will be threatened with a profound loss: "We will lose not only the unifying theme that has given coherence...