The Proud Tower
A Portrait of the World Before the War 18901914

In The Proud Tower, Barbara Tuchman concentrates on society rather than the state. With an artists 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 selfdepicted hero, Richard Strauss; the sudden gorgeous blaze of Diaghilevs Russian Ballet and Stravinskys music; the Dreyfus Affair; the two peace conferences in The Hague; and, finally, the youth, ideals, enthusiasm, and tragedy of socialism, epitomized in the moment when the heroic Jean Jaurs was shot to death on the night the War began and an epoch ended.