Word: tuchman
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NONFICTION: D.W. Griffith, Richard Schickel ∙ The Knight, the Lady and the Priest, Georges Duby ∙ Knock Wood, Candice Bergen ∙ The March of Folly, Barbara W. Tuchman "Son," Jack Olsen ∙ Tales from the Secret Annex, Anne Frank
...Tuchman's final example is one of the most extensive government follies in history America's long involvement in Vietnam, which began with aid to French troops in 1946 and ended with 45,000 American casualties...
...always been done that way, even when studies showed it was no help at all. President after President campaigned on an anti-war platform, only to keep the troops in the jungles for a little bit longer in hopes of a final victory. Politicians are always reluctant, Tuchman observes, to "cut their losses and pull...
Unlike her previous books, which tend to degenerate into a string of unrelated, if interesting, incidents, Tuchman binds the four examples together with common factors. Starting with the original Laocoon, a citizen of Troy who felt that various natural phenomena promised doom, Tuchman goes on to find modern-day Laocoons. John Kenneth Galbraith, Arthur Schlesinger Sr. and McGeorge Bundy. Moreover, each instance of folly described by Tuchman builds on the one before it: modern leaders repeat--and expand--the mistakes of their predecessors...
...resources and problems of our economy'" by increasing the budget deficit. Advisors such as Edwin O. Reischauer see tragedy in the fact that the West "allowed the Indochinese nationalism to become a Communist cause." In the follies of the past we see shades of the policy of the present. Tuchman laments the failure of the world's past leaders to learn from their predecessors. The March of Folly is, in fact, a plea to stop the march of folly