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was no wooden head," since he avoided making a decision on Vietnam; had he lived, he would presumably either have withdrawn from Vietnam or become another wooden head.)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.
Pub Date: March 19, 1984
ISBN: 0345308239
Page Count: 502
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1984
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fantastic, authentic military fiction.
Taut, well-crafted thriller about a nuclear stand-off in the waning days of the Nixon administration.
McCurdy’s book offers a microscopic view of the officers stationed at the Minuteman Missile System located at Missouri’s Whiteman Air Force Base during the 1970s. Based on actual events, McCurdy examines an aborted missile launch through the perspective of Lieutenant Gray Crawford, a crack Air Force officer stationed at the base. Crawford is a hero’s hero, a military wunderkind best suited to performing under duress. Readers will likely become captivated by Crawford–both as a man and a soldier–as he carefully ponders the fateful decision that, in the tensest days of the Cold War, will head off World War III. McCurdy was once stationed as a commander at Whiteman during the early ’70s and channels his experiences into the book, lending the story a level of detail and authenticity missing from other, more dilettantish military fictions. Access to recently declassified information flavors the narrative with a certain cache; the author’s claim that some of the stories have been, until recently, top secret only ratchets up the level of excitement. But McCurdy keeps the novel’s pace exhilarating with energetic prose and imaginative renderings. He turns the Launch Control Capsule (the underground command center where the Missile System team works) into a pressure cooker where anything can happen–a sort of militaristic soap-opera set. But Whiteman is not jingoist military fiction. McCurdy may pack his book with thrills, but he is also sure to communicate the heavy ethical burdens carried by the men who, day in and day out, have their fingers on the proverbial red button. This depth of characterization provides the book with a nuanced weight and texture that assures McCurdy’s novel serious consideration.
Fantastic, authentic military fiction.Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2008
ISBN: 978-0976117919
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Alford's fascinating unraveling of an Army cover-up reveals many American WW II soldiers to be not the great liberators, but the great looters of Europe. At the end of WW II, more than one fifth of the world's great artworks were left under the protection of American soldiers in Germany and Austria. Treasures moved from museums and private homes, either stolen by or hidden from the Nazis, were amassed in warehouses, monasteries, and castles to be safeguarded, then returned to their rightful owners. After a decade-plus of research, (and despite mysteriously missing documents and Army noncooperation), Alford found that, with the enemy defeated, some American soldiers behaved like ravenous children in an untended sweet shop, taking advantage of postwar mayhem to profit. Not content to go home with mere honor, many stole Old Master paintings, ancient coins, china, jewelry, furs, antique pistols, even concentration camp victims' ashes and wedding rings. Alford's prose is textbook-dry, but the lootings at the book's heart are pure action thriller. Captain Norman T. Byrne, appointed to protect works of art in a defeated, bombed-out Berlin, instead presided over the dispersal of valuables from a DÅrer etched plate to a stamp collection. With secret Swiss sales, buried booty, and polygraph interrogations, the Hesse crown jewel theft involving a WAC captain and her colonel lover reads more like LeCarrÇ than history. Even when alerted to wrongdoing, Army higher-ups did little to stop the thieving—either to avoid embarrassment or to cover their own misdeeds. Despite the efforts of Alford, who is now advising German and Russian authorities on recovering looted treasures, the whereabouts of many treasures remains a mystery. While victory and spoils historically go hand in hand, our perception of American Army heroes bringing goodwill and safety in the Nazis' wake is altered by this testament to the dishonesty and greed of a few no-good men.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 1-55972-237-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Birch Lane Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
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