The Proud Tower

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

De: Barbara W. Tuchman

Narrado por: Wanda McCaddon

"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

Reseñas de la Crítica

"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)

Masterful

As always with Barbara Tuchman a masterful, enlightening and instructive view on the selected period. In this case you get the feeling of living through the pre-war period. Some chapters are just an absolute please (e.g. first one on the English goverment & establishment, chapter on the Dreyfus affair in France). It is also commendable how taking ~8-9 different subjects and sticking to them the author manages to create a coherent tapestry of the period

The gone mad before it went truly mad!

How do you tell the story of how a world went mad in 1914? You start a quarter of a century before and begin the slow walk forward year by year with a list of the self serving, self absorbed Politicians, Socialists, Anarchists, Monarchists and a sprinkling of liberal democrats. Their world is spinning from their grasp and a new world is emerging due to ideas, technology, political systems and they can’t seem to understand how to do it peacefully. At the fringe of society are the Anarchists who are hell bent on destroying any system for the sake of destroying. Assassination seems to be the main focal point that the Anarchist see as a way to cause change. Socialist see strikes and unification across borders as the way for workers to cause change in the Capitalist system. Politicians seem almost inept as assassination spreads across the world... and the world is marching toward the cataclysmic event that will turn Europe and the world upside down for the next 100 years. It is the end of the Monarchists, the emergence of totalitarian rule and with a glimmer of hope that the liberal democracies will prevail. What has happened is that they have been swept up into August 1914 with no way out, you might say they never saw it coming but instead they lived it and should have seen all the warning signs. The book is good but not great unlike the Guns of August or March to Folly. It may be the subject matter or time period, it could have been a great time during this period of history but the good people did nothing and allowed evil to prevail.

An history of the past with relevance to today

Where does The Proud Tower rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

An excellent demonstration of how individual decisions and historical trends can combine to produce radical, and unpredictable, social and political changes. The book is relevant to the current debate between those who on the one side believe in historical necessity and those who believe in the power of human will to produce "hope and change."

Classic History

A penetrating study of the cross-currents of culture, thought and society in the decades leading up to the Great War. Is war programmed into the human species? Maybe.

Different View of History

The Author gives a great verity of information from the other side of history . The workers and politicians with back ground information and insights

Outstanding

This shows why the author is one of the preeminent authorities on WWI. She has a vast knowledge of all aspects of age; politics, culture music art literature, everything. The narrator was awesome also.

The narrator’s voice is so bad it blows my mind

I normally listen to audiobooks at 3x speed minimum. For other English narrators I sometimes go down to 2.5. I find this narrator unintelligible at almost any speed.

Fascinating history

This is a compelling cultural and political portrait of the world prior to World War I. The author's method is to focus closely on personalities and movements around the world. The treatment of Germany via Richard Strauss is fascinating. Her portrait of the anarchists shows surprising parallels with today's terrorists, and you can be sure it is not anachronistic, because this book was published in the early 1960s. There is much more.

Nadia May is a superb narrator for long complex non-fiction works such as this. I marvel at her ability to intelligently sustain drive and interest with this type of text.

Fascinating preview for The Guns of August

Would you listen to The Proud Tower again? Why?

This book helps listeners make and understand connections between social movements in different countries in Europe and America duirng the 25 years preceding World War I. I have listened to it twice because I am still learning from this book.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Proud Tower?

The history of the Dreyfus affair is fascinating, and it helped me understand some of the many social problems and insecurities in France at the turn of the 20th century. I also enjoyed learning about the history of socialist and anarchist movements in Europe. Tuchman also examines German composer Richard Strauss and rapid changes in classical music during the period before the war. There were scandalous operas and triumphant ballets - which is even more interesting because of the international importance of classical music in that period of tremendous competition between countries in so many aspects of military, economic and social life.

What about Nadia May’s performance did you like?

Nadia May has a warm and enjoyable reading style. I deliberately purchased other books narrated by her.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Prelude to disaster

Any additional comments?

I would very much appreciate music credits for books such as this one (and The Guns of August) that make use of a musical theme at the beginning and end of the recording. It seems unfair not to provide listeners with this information and it is certainly unfair to the musicians.

The Birth of the Modern World

The Proud Tower opens with a description of the British Parliament, which had changed little since the end of the English Civil War and later it goes on to paint a picture of an equally archaic German near-absolute monarchy, it chronicles class divisions that would not have seemed unfamiliar to a medieval lord. But it also discusses the rising impact of liberalism, communism, and anarchy, the social forces that were spawned as a result of the industrial revolution. This book is ultimately about the clash between these forces, between the old world and the new. It demonstrates, though not intentionally, the dangers posed by both extremes and the benefits of compromise; but it also demonstrates that compromise was not always possible and, because of this fact, the eventual inevitability of the Great War. It is a story about the birth of modern western civilization and the pains we went through in achieving it. In many ways a prequel to her monumental work The Guns of August, I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest either in the Great War or in our modern cultural, social, and political institutions and how they came to be.