Barbara W. Tuchman - The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890–1914

Mrs. Tuchmans popularity is due to more than her skill with words she never loses sight of individuals, and she is not afraid to tell a story. As in all her books, this one is resplendent with people marvels of idiosyncratic fullness.

The New York Times Book Review

Her Pulitzer Prize-winning The Guns of August was an expert evocation of the first spasm of the 191418 war. She brings the same narrative gifts and panoramic camera eye to her portrait of the antebellum world.

Newsweek

An exquisitely written and thoroughly engrossing work. The authors knowledge and skill are so impressive that they whet the appetite for more. [To read these polished essays] is an esthetically rewarding experience. No one should forgo the opportunity.

Chicago Tribune

Solid and interesting. Bright with sketches of hundreds of men.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Mrs. Tuchman paints the scene for us with a masterly brush, a scene glittering and brilliant, sumptuous and outrageous.

Herald Tribune

A stunning success As remarkable a work as The Guns of August.

Library Journal

By Barbara W. Tuchman

BIBLE AND SWORD

THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM

THE GUNS OF AUGUST

THE PROUD TOWER

STILWELL AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IN CHINA

A DISTANT MIRROR

PRACTICING HISTORY

THE MARCH OF FOLLY

THE FIRST SALUTE

A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group

Copyright 1962, 1963, 1965 by Barbara W. Tuchman
Copyright 1966 by The Macmillam Company
Copyright renewed 1994 by Dr. Lester Tuchman

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published by The Macmillan Company in 1966.

were published in Vogue in 1965.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
Doubleday and A.P. Watt Ltd.: The White Mans Burden and eight lines from The Truce of the Bear (The Bear that Walks Like a Man) from Rudyard Kiplings Verse: Definitive Edition. Reprinted by permission of Doubleday and A.P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty.

Henry Holt and Company, Inc. and The Society of Authors: Excerpt from On the Idle Hill of Summer from A Shropshire Lad from The Collected Poems of A.E. Housman. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Co., Inc., and The Society of Authors as the literary representative of the Estate of A.E. Housman.

A.P Watt Ltd.: Four lines from The Valley of the Black Pig from The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats. Reprinted by permission of A.P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of Michael Yeats.

Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

www.ballantinebooks.com

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 9696511

eISBN: 978-0-307-79811-4

v3.1

While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

From The City in the Sea
EDGAR ALLAN POE

To Mr. Cecil Scott of The Macmillan Company, a participant in this book from the first outline to the end, I owe a writers most important debt: for the steady companionship of an interested reader and for constructive criticism throughout mixed with encouragement in times of need.

For advice, suggestions and answers to queries I am grateful to Mr. Roger Butterfield, author of The American Past; Professor Fritz Epstein of Indiana University; Mr. Louis Fischer, author of The Life of Lenin; Professor Edward Fox of Cornell University; Mr. K. A. Golding of the International Transport Workers Federation, London; Mr. Jay Harrison of Columbia Records; Mr. John Gutman of the Metropolitan Opera; Mr. George Lichtheim of the Institute on Communist Affairs, Columbia University; Mr. William Manchester, author of The House of Krupp; Professor Arthur Marder, editor of the letters of Sir John Fisher; Mr. George Painter, the biographer of Proust; Mr. A. L. Rowse, author of an introduction to the work of Graham Wallas; Miss Helen Ruskell and the staff of the New York Society Library; Mr. Thomas K. Scherman, director of the Little Orchestra Society; Mrs. Janice Shea for information about the circus in Germany; Professor Reba Soffer of San Fernando Valley State College for information on Wilfred Trotter; Mr. Joseph C. Swidler, chairman of the Federal Power Commission; and Mr. Louis Untermeyer, editor, among much else, of Modern British Poetry. Equal gratitude extends to the many others who gave me verbal aid of which I kept no record.

For help in finding certain of the illustrations I am indebted to Mr. A. J. Ubels of the Royal Archives at The Hague; to the staffs of the Art and Print Rooms of the New York Public Library; and to Mr. and Mrs. Harry Collins of Brown Brothers.

I would like to express particular thanks to two indefatigable readers of the proofs, Miss Jessica Tuchman and Mr. Timothy Dickinson, for improvements and corrections, respectively; and to Mrs. Esther Bookman, who impeccably typed the manuscript of both this and my previous book, The Guns of August.

BARBARA W . TUCHMAN

FOLLOWING

Lord Salisbury

Lord Ribblesdale by Sargent, 1902

The Wyndham sisters by Sargent, 1899

Chatsworth

Prince Peter Kropotkin

Editorial office of La Rvolte

Slept in That Cellar Four Years: photograph by Jacob Riis, about 1890

Lockout: original title lAttentat du Pas de Calais, by Thophile Steinlen, from Le Chambard Socialiste, Dec. 16, 1893

Thomas B. Reed

Captain (later Admiral) Alfred Thayer Mahan

Charles William Eliot

Samuel Gompers

The mob during Zolas trial: original title Les Moutons de Boisdeffre, by Steinlen, from La Feuille, Feb. 28, 1898

The Syndicate: original title Le Pouvoir Civil, by Forain, from Psst!, June 24, 1899

Allegory: by Forain, from Psst!, July 23, 1898

Truth Rising from Its Well, by Caran dAche, from Psst!, June 10, 1899

British delegation to The Hague, 1899

Paris Exposition, 1900: Porte Monumentale and the Palace of Electricity

Alfred Nobel

Bertha von Suttner

The Krupp works at Essen, 1912

Richard Strauss

Friedrich Nietzsche watching the setting sun, Weimar, 1900

A beer garden in Berlin

Nijinsky as the Faun: design by Lon Bakst

Arthur James Balfour

Coal strike, 1910: mine owners arriving at 10 Downing Street

Seamans strike, 1911

David Lloyd George