The Proud Tower

A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914

By: Barbara W. Tuchman

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 22 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

"The diplomatic origins, so-called, of the War are only the fever chart of the patient; they do not tell us what caused the fever. To probe for underlying causes and deeper forces one must operate within the framework of a whole society and try to discover what moved the people in it." (Barbara W. Tuchman)

The fateful quarter-century leading up to World War I was a time when the world of privilege still existed in Olympian luxury and the world of protest was heaving in its pain, its power, and its hate. The age was the climax of a century of the most accelerated rate of change in history, a cataclysmic shaping of destiny.

In The Proud Tower, Barbara Tuchman concentrates on society rather than the state. With an artist's selectivity, Tuchman brings to vivid life the people, places, and events that shaped the years leading up to the Great War: the Edwardian aristocracy and the end of their reign; the Anarchists of Europe and America, who voiced the protest of the oppressed; Germany, as portrayed through the figure of the self-depicted hero, Richard Strauss; the sudden gorgeous blaze of Diaghilev's Russian Ballet and Stravinsky's music; the Dreyfus Affair; the two Peace Conferences at the Hague; and, finally, the youth, ideals, enthusiasm, and tragedy of Socialism, epitomized in the moment when the heroic Jean Jaures was shot to death on the night the War began and an epoch ended.

©1996 Barbara W. Tuchman (P)2005 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"It would be impossible to read The Proud Tower without pleasure and admiration." (The New York Times)

"Tuchman proved in The Guns of August that she could write better military history than most men. In this sequel, she tells her story with cool wit and warm understanding." (Time)

Tuchman sweep marred by narrator.

This book, like all of Tuchman's popular histories, is sweeping, interesting for general readers, and easy to understand without being pedantic or shallow. What I've always liked about Tuchman -- her knack for analyzing the root causes of events without losing the colour and passion of individual lives -- is evident here, though somewhat less technically-adept than her brillian medieval history 'A Distant Mirror'.

However, this particular Audible.com edition is marred by the precious upper-class accent of the narrator. Listening to Tuchman's descriptions of English aristocratic privelege in the tones of a girl's private school matron is slightly annoying, but as this lengthy book progresses through chapters on American politics, popular culture and social mores, and the coming Great War, it becomes positively off-putting. I particularly dislike the narrator's tendency to put on goofy foreign accents when reading quotations by the characters Tuchman discusses (GB Shaw in drole Irish brogue, Petr Kropotkin in absurd Russian growl, and so on).

This book is a great value at the price, but sample the reader's voice before you buy.

Lively history, beautifully read

This book is worth buying for chapter one alone. This paints a word picture of the lives of the aristocratic rulers of Britain in the last decades of the nineteenth century, at the peak of Victorian imperial power. It is sympathetic in tone, full of individual anecdote, and at times very funny.

Much of the book is just as good, with a close look at US politics at the time, the conditions and ideas that gave rise to the anarchists and international socialists, and the madness that engulfed French politics during the Dreyfus affair. The realistic cynicism in the description of the Hague peace conferences is brilliantly done and gives a strong sense of why the era eventually collapsed into the horror and violence of the Great War. The German chapter and the story of the tangled politics of the 'welfare' parliament are rather slower, but worth the listen.

Overwhelming detail

Would you listen to The Proud Tower again? Why?

No. Too much detail for an audiobook. The amount of information is staggering and interesting but it is better suited to reading than listening.

A perfect history book

A perfect history book: filled with color, humanity and facts while feeling like the times are unfolding around the reader. It is exactly what I’d hoped it would be – an answer to the mindset of mankind leading up to the Great War. As a lover of history, I could not be happier.

An intriguing portrait

in the first few chapters of this I thought I was reading part political history and part Society gossip column. But as I got further into it I realized this was an important aspect to the historical context of the pre-war period at times it was a little hard to follow but overall I found it a very informative text on the causes leading up to the war and its impact thereafter.

What a Read!!

The author was thorough with details dates and events. I am a history novice so I still need to read more
I thoroughly enjoyed the reader. She did a wonderful job

Tuchman was the finest historian of her time

This is a wonderful encapsulation of the 50 odd years before WW1. It tries (quite successfully) to answer the question of whether war was ordained or not when European powers tried to make sense of massive social, cultural, and political changes as the guilded age drew to a close.

Remarkable Achievement

Tuchman's Proud Tower is both history and literary work of art. Her focus on the the high tide of the 2nd industrial revolution, the cult of progress, the rise of mass politics and the invention of the modern city, suggest an ambition closer to Gibbon recalling his beloved Romans than a world that is only a century past. And in a moral sense, this is the point of her work, the historical rupture of WW1 and all that it swept away. Tuchman's account of the Dreyfus Affair, Speaker of the House Thomas Reed's showdown with Congress and the death of Jaures are like perfect miniatures from Plutarch, each of them models and warnings about the end of a civilization.

A portrait of a gilded age

What did you love best about The Proud Tower?

The narrative is so engaging. So much ground is covered, so many names, places, movements and events are presented but they flow seamlessly together and never once are you overwhelmed.

What about Nadia May’s performance did you like?

It felt intimate. The tone and pacing was if an aunt or grandparent were talking to reading to you when you were a child (but never down to you by any stretch!). It was a flow of information that not at all a lecture.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Hidden sight is of course 20/20. Attitudes, ideas and actions were at times shocking. The Dreifus Affair was insane by ever stretch of the imagination.

Insightful history

Very informative and good documented characterizations. Very interesting descriptions of The Hague and its formation.