The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam [B1948]

1984 HCDJ, nice and clean, with some wear to the dust jacket. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Barbara W. Tuchman, author of the World War I masterpiece The Guns of August, grapples with her boldest subject: the pervasive presence, through the ages, of failure, mismanagement, and delusion in government. Drawing on a comprehensive array of examples, from Montezuma's senseless surrender of his empire in 1520 to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Barbara W. Tuchman defines folly as the pursuit by government of policies contrary to their own interests, despite the availability of feasible alternatives. In brilliant detail, Tuchman illuminates four decisive turning points in history that illustrate the very heights of folly: the Trojan War, the breakup of the Holy See provoked by the Renaissance popes, the loss of the American colonies by Britain's George III, and the United States' own persistent mistakes in Vietnam. Throughout The March of Folly, Tuchman's incomparable talent for animating the people, places, and events of history is on spectacular display.

"A glittering narrative . . . a moral [book] on the crimes and follies of governments and the misfortunes the governed suffer in consequence."-The New York Times Book Review.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "It was so hard to read this book and not compare it to these Trumpian times."; "Barbara Tuchman is my goat history writer. She has a skill in communicating "Serious" History in a way that is easy to enjoy and read for the layperson and this book made me appreciate her skill all that much more. From Troy, the Catholic Church, the American Revolution, and of course Vietnam; Tuchman crafts a pretty convincing thesis on how the decision makers leading up to their collapse sidestepped all of the good advice and warnings they received."; "This book was written in 1983 but it describes in detail all of the errors and bad decisions the US government made in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars several decades later, and which the US is making right now. The section about Vietnam is especially mind-blowing. This ought to be a must read for people in government and the military."; "Offering deep historical and political analysis, alongside to ample research, the book triumphantly shows that the essence of governance has hardly changed over the course of last 3 thousand years and may I add that the very recent developments, that are currently plaguing our own times are further evidences to support this notion. I Recommend this book to any curious reader, interested in world history, history of governance, basics of human behavior and thinking, as well as the essence of power itself."