“Mankind's tragedy [is]: that it can draw the
blueprints of goodness but it cannot live up to them.” ―Historian Barbara Tuchman
(1912-1989), The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
(1966)
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning historian Barbara Tuchman
died on this day 30 years ago in Greenwich, Conn. Working outside academe, she
distilled complex events into clear narratives and vivid prose for a mass
audience.
But it was her impact on one reader in particular
where she may have made her greatest contribution. It was fortunate for the
world that in 1962, John F. Kennedy, for all his faults, nevertheless possessed a curious
mind and an ability to apply the lessons of history.
From The Guns
of August, Tuchman’s examination of the events leading up to WWI, the young
President had absorbed the fact that rival powers, if they do not stop to
consider their next move each step of the way, risk being drawn into
cataclysmic conflicts. That realization saved the U.S. from plunging into a
nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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