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Book Reviews of Practicing History: Selected Essays

Practicing History:  Selected Essays
Practicing History Selected Essays
Author: Barbara W. Tuchman
ISBN-13: 9780345911018
ISBN-10: 0345911016
Publication Date: 6/6/1996
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Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Type: Paperback
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Debisbooked avatar reviewed Practicing History: Selected Essays on + 136 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Excellent book of selected Tuchman essays concerning how history is written and what elements the historian should utilize in writing. Some chapter headings include: When Does History Happen?; How We Entered World War I; Is History a Guide to the Future? and Why Policy-Makers Do Not Listen. The latter chapter, though written about a different crisis in a different part of the world, curiously sounds familiar, as if it was written about Iraq today. An example: "Some means must be found to require that preconceived notions and emotional fixations be periodically tested against the evidence. Perhaps legislation could be enacted to enforce a regular pause for rethinking, for questioning the wisdom of an accepted course of action..."
Barbara Tuchman won the Pulitzer Prize for her huge bestseller, The Guns of August. Other well known works include Stilwell and the American Experience, A Distant Mirror, The March of Folly, and The First Salute.