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Barbara Tuchman Quotes about War

All Barbara Tuchman Quotes Age Art Church History Humanity Military Power Purpose Reality Sin War quotes Writing
War is the unfolding of miscalculations.

War is the unfolding of miscalculations.

Barbara Tuchman
Peace, War, Military

Business, like a jackal, trotted on the heels of war.

Barbara Tuchman
War, Jackals, Heels
Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.389, Random House

in the midst of war and crisis nothing is as clear or as certain as it appears in hindsight

Barbara Tuchman
War, Hindsight, Midst
Barbara W. Tuchman (2009). “The Guns of August: The Outbreak of World War I; Barbara W. Tuchman's Great War Series”, p.485, Random House

The conduct of war was so much more interesting than its prevention.

Barbara Tuchman
War, Interesting, Prevention
Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914; Barbara W. Tuchman's Great War Series”, p.335, Random House

When every autumn people said it could not last through the winter, and when every spring there was still no end in sight, only the hope that out of it all some good would accrue to mankind kept men and nations fighting. When at last it was over, the war had many diverse results and one dominant one transcending all others: disillusion.

Barbara Tuchman
Hope, Spring, War

Misgovernment is of four kinds, often in combination. They are: 1) tyranny or oppression, of which history provides so many well-known examples that they do not need citing; 2) excessive ambition, such as Athens' attempted conquest of Sicily in the Peloponnesian War, Philip II's of England via the Armada, Germany's twice-attempted rule of Europe by a self-conceived master race, Japan's bid for an empire of Asia; 3) incompetence or decadence, as in the case of the late Roman empire, the last Romanovs and the last imperial dynasty of China; and finally 4) folly or perversity.

Barbara Tuchman
War, Ambition, Race
Barbara Tuchman (2015). “The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam”, p.11, Crux Publishing Ltd

More than a code of manners in war and love, Chivalry was a moral system, governing the whole of noble life.

Barbara Tuchman
War, Knighthood, And Love
Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.62, Random House

The social damage was not in the failure but in the undertaking, which was expensive. The cost of war was the poison running through the 14th century.

Barbara Tuchman
Running, War, Poison
Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.412, Random House

Money was the crux. Raising money to pay the cost of war was to cause more damage to 14th century society than the physical destruction of war itself.

Barbara Tuchman
War, Cost, Pay
"A Distant Mirror". Book by Barbara Tuchman, p. 81, 1978.

No less a bold and pugnacious figure than Winston Churchill broke down and was unable to finish his remarks at the sendoff of the British Expeditionary Force into the maelstrom of World War I in Europe.

Barbara Tuchman
War, Europe, World

The fleet sailed to its war base in the North Sea, headed not so much for some rendezvous with glory as for rendezvous with discretion.

Barbara Tuchman
War, Sea, History

The Hundred Years' War, like the crises of the Church in the same period, broke apart medieval unity.

Barbara Tuchman
War, Years, Unity
Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.564, Random House

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