At her best, popular historian Tuchman tells a good story. At her
worst, she can be superficial and banal. An exercise in historical
interpretation such as this, tracing a single idea through a set of
examples, is structured toward her weaknesses; and they are only
too apparent. Tuchman applies the concept of folly to historical
"mistakes" with certain features in common: the policy taken was
contrary to self-interest; it was not that of an individual
(attributable to the individual's character), but that of a group;
it was not the only policy available; and it was pursued despite
forebodings that it was mistaken. The only way to account for such
self-destructive policies, in Tuchman's view, is to label them
follies; but that, as she seems unaware, puts them beyond rational
explanation. Her three major examples are the aggressive actions of
the Renaissance popes that resulted in the Reformation, Britain's
loss of the American colonies, and the American debacle in Vietnam.
(The Trojan Horse episode serves as an introductory prototype.) One
of Tuchman's auxiliary categories is "wooden-headed," which is what
she calls the popes who resisted pleas for reform, stuck to their
doomed ways, and otherwise lived debauched lives. (On the other
hand, "Kennedy was no wooden head," since he avoided making a
decision on Vietnam; had he lived, he would presumably either have
withdrawn from Vietnam or become another wooden head.) Disavowals
notwithstanding, Tuchman cannot escape exercising hindsight. The
appearance is inescapable that she has plumbed her cited sources
not for their evocation of the mentality of an age but for some
good quotes that support the contention of available alternatives.
On the American Revolution, for example, her simple account of the
Stamp Act and parliamentary debate on the colonies betrays no
substantial knowledge of the recent, careful reconstruction of the
political understandings of the time. While Tuchman's gaze is
squarely fixed on ministers in London trying to implement an
unenforceable tax, the real dynamics of colonial rebellion were
being played out in America. If there was folly here it was the
same as Tuchman's, lying in the ignored political transformation
across the ocean. None of the sections work as straight narrative:
they are too shallow, and the time covered is too long, for more
than an outline of events. Unable to explain the courses of action
taken, Tuchman cries folly. That principle of historical
interpretation is likely to satisfy very few. (Kirkus Reviews)
From the distinguished American historian whose work has been
acclaimed around the world, a major new book that penetrates one of
the most bizarre and fascinating paradoxes in history: the
persistent pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own
intersts. Across the march of thirty centuries, Tuchman brings to
life the dramatic events which constitute folly's hallmark in
government; the fall of Troy, symbolic prototype of freely chosen
disaster; the Protestant secession, provoked by six decades of
spectacularly corrupt papcy; the British forfeiture of the American
colonies; and America's catastrophic thirty year involvement with
vietnam. The March of Folly, a work of profound and poignant
relevance today, is breathtaking in its scope, originality and
vision, and represents the writing of Barbara Tuchman at it's
finest.
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