The Proud Tower, by Barbara Tuchman is a series of essays written to provide, as the cover puts it “A portrait of the World before the War, 1890-1914.” Each of the eight chapters is an essay and a story in and of itself, without reference to, or contingency toward the reading of any other chapter. Each essay focuses on a specific topic, setting a frame of reference for, and highlighting details of, a diverse range of political and societal realities of the fifteen years leading up to the Great War. While diverse in subject matter, points of view, geographical locations, and historical timelines, the essays are not altogether disparate in nature. Once read in its entirety, Tuchman’s Book can leave the reader with a newfound appreciation of the emotional reasons for the Great War. It can be difficult to surmise a specific purpose for an author to write this particular style of book because, unlike many other reads with a continuous point of view, it can be challenging to discern a beginning, middle and end; the end being where a reader can usually see …show more content…
the lesson laid out plainly. Instead, with a series of essays, it is up to the reader to extrapolate and reason on their own as to the commonality of the essays. For this book, I believe that Tuchman has laid the evidence out quick clearly. We can start with the book’s title.
The Proud Tower is a lyrical reference to a poem by Edgar Allan Poe entitled “The City in the Sea”. In this rare example of an allegorical poem by the famed author and poet, Poe personifies the apprehensive anxiety surrounding the notion of death and decay as the ruler over a city. The residents of which are alluded to have build the city on wealth and greed. Poetic analysts have interpreted the use of the inhabitants’ construction based on greed as a form of worship to the poem’s godly ruler, Death. The chapters in this book have a resounding common theme of the struggles to maintain or acquire power, status, and wealth. By playing off the contrasting points of view, Tuchman suggests that the world mentality at the time was analogous to that of the builders of Poe’s fictitious city. Like Death rules over the city in the sea, death would eventually come to rule over Europe as
well. As a noted historian, Tuchman has written several books on various wars of the twentieth century. The most known of which, have been dedicated to the subject of World War One. Having been born in 1912, just two years before the assassination of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand and the onset of the First World War, a lifestyle resulting from conflict likely had a huge impression on the young daughter of a wealthy Jewish Banker in New York. The Pulitzer Prize winning author had a unique approach to publication, which threw aside the typical style of recounting historical archives as is common among most researchers and journalists. Instead, Tuchman relies on trying to capture the story behind the facts and, what I believe to be the case, is trying to make the history accessible to people as opposed to simply providing another starchy, data driven text. Chapter one of The Proud Tower presented the lifestyles of two British Prime Ministers, among other lesser-known individuals. I should have liked to read this chapter after some of the others because I found it to be a dry segment. It almost drove me to find a different book. After further reading and comparison, I feel it may have been less about the author’s writing and more about the stuffy nature of British Aristocracy and a strong distaste for the general lack of democracy to be found in the empire. In particular, I found it difficult to swallow the words of Lord Salisbury when Tuchman wrote “He believed the workings of democracy to be dangerous to liberty, for under democracy ‘passion is not the exception but the rule’ and it was ‘perfectly impossible’ to commend a farsighted passionless polity to ‘men whose minds are unused to thought and undisciplined to study’ to widen the suffrage among the poor while increasing taxes upon the rich would end, he wrote, in a complete divorce of power from responsibility; ‘the rich would pay all the taxes and the poor make all the laws.” While it was hard to stomach the thought of an empire following this general mindset, it helps put into perspective the anarchists’ point of view in Chapter Two of the book. This chapter drills into mind the deplorable conditions of the common man, woman and child. In a stark contrast the haughty elitism of the upper class, the overworked, sick, malnourished lower class struggled to survive and in too many cases, did not. The call to terrorism seemed like the only way to obtain what the anarchists believed to be the only hope for happiness. As Tuchman but it “The Anarchist believed that with Property, the monarch of all evil, eliminated, no man could again live off the labour of another and human nature would be released to seek its natural level of justice among men.” This anarchist ideal of a utopian society resulted in the assassination of six heads of state in the two decades leading up to the war. Chapter three, in my opinion, didn’t shed more light on the trials of the time, but it did exemplify that the fight for power was not isolated to Europe, but rather spilled over into the American mindset and spawned a few minor wars and the acquisition of American territories. Chapter four depicts the heated trial of Frenchman, accused of treason. This trial exemplified the growing discord between democracy and government power by highlighting the baseless conviction of Captain Dreyfus, by allowing justice to be screwed by media and public opinion. Chapter five discussed the attempts of a league of nations to prevent war, however it also alludes that the attempted conference was really more of a chance for Russia to rebuild after a war with Japan before joining another war with Austria. Chapter six is best understood when you recall the aristocratic mindset of England in chapter one, where in the wealthiest and highest class individuals were best suited to govern the world and its inhabitants. German Bourgeoisie who, believing themselves to be the richest and most educated country of all, felt that they would be a natural source of global governance. Chapters seven and eight had a similar approach, discussing the growing movement of socialism and labor parties in England, France and the United States. These chapters brought to light a growing movement of middle class reformation. Overall, I did enjoy this book. It was a great way to incite a curiosity to research aspects of the era that I was not familiar with and for that I appreciate its value. I also found the writing style to be an easier approach to complex realities. Almost story like, it was easier to envision the world around the facts, than is possible with a textbook. This did prove to be a disadvantage at times when discussing multiple individuals in common themes, and made it difficult to distinguish between some people in similar events and situations. I also felt that, at no specific point, but in overall tone, that Tuchman wrote with a sense of judgment. This may not be true of the author, and may just be a result of the need to fill in the gaps with descriptive words of difficult people and situations, which isn’t typically necessary in the more textbook style of historical writing. It did prove a little distracting nonetheless. I would recommend this book to someone who is fascinated by World War One, but I would be less inclined to recommend it to someone who was looking to see if they would be interested in the era or writing genre.
In An American Soldier in World War I, David Snead examines account of George Browne, a civil engineer who fought as part of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during World War I. Snead shares Browne’s account of the war through the letters he wrote to his fiancé Martha Ingersoll Johnson. Through Browne’s letters and research conducted of the AEF, Snead gives a concise, informative, and harrowing narrative of life as a soldier serving in the camps and front lines of the Great War. Snead attempts to give the reader an understanding of Browne’s service by focusing on his division, the 42nd Division, their training and preparation, combat on the front lines, and the effects of war on George and Martha’s relationship. As Snead describes, “Brownie’s letters offer a view of the experiences of an American soldier. He described the difficulties of training, transit to and from France, the dangers and excitement of combat, and the war’s impact on relationships.” (Browne 2006, 2) Furthermore, he describes that despite the war’s effect on their relationship, “their
The manner in which Poe addresses the topic of class differences and the struggle for power with his fictional characters resounds of his own struggles in his personal life. However, unlike in Hop Frog and the Masque of the Red Death, he was never himself able to emerge wholly victorious over his adversaries, including the publishing industry. In addition, Poe’s characters appear to hint that while wealth may be the source of power for many, the correct use of information itself is the surest path to the acquisition of power.
The author uses many way of telling the story buy enhancing the reader understanding in rregrades to the point of view of the story line. The author, Jon Krakauer expresses and explains this stroy in many unique ways throughout the entire book using other authors quotes to tie in with his story, the constant change in the setting, and references the creates a unique structure to the book.
The effectiveness of this compacted novel is greater than those of a thousand paged. The story within this book is not entirely unfamiliar,
Stylistically, the book is arranged in rotating chapters. Every fourth chapter is devoted to each individual character and their continuation alo...
...’ (21). These rhetoric questions force readers to stand on her side and to ponder in her direction. She compares the contents of the twentieth-century chapters in current books to ‘a modern-art museum’ (22), which ironically and humorously criticizes the fancy design of the current books. She also directly quotes the original texts to show the changes of current books such as a paragraph from Sellers’ book ‘As It Happened’.
The beginning of this book was somewhat confusing, we all wondered if the book was really the authors trouble of putting the book together that led to its structure or if it was meant to represent something else. We had
“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,” (“The Raven” 1). “The Raven” arguably one of the most famous poems by Edgar Allan Poe, is a narrative about a depressed man longing for his lost love. Confronted by a talking raven, the man slowly loses his sanity. “The Haunted Palace” a ballad by Poe is a brilliant and skillfully crafted metaphor that compares a palace to a human skull and mind. A palace of opulence slowly turns into a dilapidated ruin. This deterioration is symbolic of insanity and death. In true Poe style, both “The Raven” and “The Haunted Palace” are of the gothic/dark romanticism genre. These poems highlight sadness, death, and loss. As to be expected, an analysis of the poems reveals differences and parallels. An example of this is Poe’s use of poetic devices within each poem. Although different in structure, setting, and symbolism these two poems show striking similarities in tone and theme.
“In my estimation a good book first must contain little or no trace of the author unless the author himself is a character. That is, when I read the book I should not feel that someone is telling me the story but t...
Set just after one of England’s worst tragedies, Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway is a vivid picture of the effects of World War I on London’s high society, often in glaring contrast to the effects of shell shock suffered by war veteran Septimus Smith. For members of high society, the War’s impact is largely indirect, mainly affecting their conversations at posh social functions. Although the war has had little impact on these people, some strive to develop a deeper understanding of the War’s main consequence: death. For Septimus, who has endured the direct impact of the War as a soldier, however, the memories and traumas of the War are more real than the peaceful life to which he has returned. At the urgent pleas of his wife, doctors unsuccessfully attempt to help him regain the blissful ignorance of war that he once had. Woolf illuminates a perpetual clash between those who merely understand the War as a continuing news story, and Septimus, who knows it as a frightening reality.
In every piece of literature Edgar Allan Poe has written, the reader can quickly pick up on his gothic style of writing. In his poem, “The City in the Sea” has not a realistic location but however a setting that quickly promotes a feel of mystery and loneliness. “The City in the Sea” was a revised version of his earlier poem,"The Doomed City", both in which give a feel of death and loneliness.
The theme of a novel can change the complete meaning of the story for each individual reader. If one person reads a book and he/she thinks that the book's main them...
The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman condensed the opening drama of The Great War into 440 pages. “Europe as a powder keg” is easily described and articulated through analysis of the belligerents’ pre-war operations and alliances. Barbara Tuchman is a Pulitzer Prize winning historian and journalist, her main focus centers around geopolitical affairs. Tuchman’s analysis of the first thirty days of the war demonstrates how inadequate each nation’s military was at the wars onset. The Guns of August present the reader with the primary factors of the disposition, political, and initial combat operations that shaped the First World War. However, the Author’s writing style was the forefront in conveying to the reader that Europe was foolishly
In the beginning of the story, with an extensive and vivid description of the house and its vicinity, Poe prepares the scene for a dreadful, bleak, and distempered tale. The setting not only affects Poe’s narration of the story but influences the characters and their actions as well. Both the narrator and his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher, question w...
Through imagery Poe teaches his readers that they are the ones that determine their life after death. In “The City of Sin” Poe describes the lives of the people who once lived in the city death