Barbara W. Tuchman

Lore & Background

Barbara Wertheim was born into a prominent family; her father Maurice Wertheim was a banker, owner of *The Nation*, and art collector, and her mother Alma Morgenthau was the daughter of Henry Morgenthau, U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. As a two-year-old in 1914, Tuchman was present during the pursuit of the German battle cruiser *Goeben* and light cruiser *Breslau*, an event she later documented in *The Guns of August*. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from Radcliffe College in 1933, studying history and literature.

After graduation, she worked as a volunteer research assistant at the Institute of Pacific Relations, spent a year in Tokyo, and covered the Spanish Civil War as a correspondent for *The Nation*. During World War II, she worked in the Office of War Information. She married internist Lester R. Tuchman in 1940 and had three daughters, including Jessica Mathews. Following the war, she raised her children while researching what became her first book, *Bible and Sword* (1956).

Tuchman favored a literary approach to history, providing eloquent explanatory narratives rather than focusing on fresh archival sources. She argued that freedom from academic expectations was liberating. She was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1978 and became the first female president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1979. She received the National Book Award in History for *A Distant Mirror* (1980) and delivered the NEH Jefferson Lecture that same year.

Reader's Guide

Barbara W. Tuchman's significance lies in her ability to craft compelling, narrative-driven histories that appealed to a general audience, earning her the description 'not a historian's historian; she was a layperson's historian.' Her works, such as *The Guns of August* and *A Distant Mirror*, remain widely read and cited in both academic and popular history. She introduced 'Tuchman's Law,' a playful observation that the fact of being reported multiplies the apparent extent of any deplorable development by five- to tenfold. Her legacy includes influencing historical scholarship and public understanding of history, as well as being a trustee of Radcliffe College and receiving numerous honorary degrees. A tower at Currier House (Radcliffe College, now Harvard College) is named in her honor.

Did You Know?

• Tuchman was present as a two-year-old during the pursuit of the German battle cruiser *Goeben* and light cruiser *Breslau* in 1914, an event she later wrote about in *The Guns of August*.
• She never received a graduate degree in history but was awarded honorary degrees from Yale, Harvard, New York University, Columbia, Boston University, and Smith College.
• She was the first female president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, elected in 1979.
• Tuchman's Law states that 'the fact of being reported multiplies the apparent extent of any deplorable development by five- to tenfold.'