The March of Folly
I often wonder where the place is to be found between being entertained, being made to think, and being constrained by academic rigour. We want to read books about issues that excite us or that confuse us, about topics we want to explore, and often wish to read stimulating contributions without being subjected to the demands of academic precision. We also like to spend time looking at ideas, even if they turn out to be rather slight, oversimplified, and possibly somewhat misleading.
Of all the fields where this is a problem, history must be at the forefront. Histories are always exercises in the imagination, as we can never go back to the past, or not yet anyway! As we read reconstructed accounts of the way things were, we both know they are based on the writer’s views, and often nothing more than that. At the same time, we can be captured by a writer who appears to make the past ‘live’. As we read, we know that another writer will come out with another book that will reveal all the shortfalls in the book we’ve just finished. Revisions and rethinking will continue, and, we are assured, each new work will be better: more insightful, more accurate. Where’s the stopping point – no, where’s the starting point? At which point is this particular contribution one worth considering?
Barbara Tuchman is a case in point. A 20th Century historian, journalist and writer, born in 1912 (and died in1989), she was known for compelling popular histories, and won the Pulitzer Prize twice, the first time for the Guns of August, a history of the prelude to and the first month of World War I, and the second for Stilwell and the American Experience in China, a 1971 biography of General Stillwell. However, for many people it was her broad-brush review of world history, the March of Folly, that they read and enjoyed.
She attended the Walden School on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Radcliffe College in 1933, having studied history and literature. Working first as a researcher and journalist, it was following the Second World War, she began basic research for what would ultimately become the 1956 book Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour. Its publication was the beginning of her commitment to historical research and writing, at a pace which soon saw her turning out a new book at approximately every four years.
She never claimed to be an academic and said that the norms of academic writing would have “stifled any writing capacity.” She saw herself as having a literary approach to the writing of history, focussed on explanatory narratives rather than concentrating upon discovery and publication of newly discovered archival sources. Tuchman was “not a historian’s historian; she was a layperson’s historian who made the past interesting to millions of readers”.
The book has been described as concerned with ‘one of the most compelling paradoxes of history: the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests’. Its four sections cover four major instances of government folly in human history: these are the Trojan’s decision to move a Greek wooden horse into their city; the failure of Popes in the Renaissance to stem the challenges that would lead to the Protestant Reformation; the catastrophic consequences of England’s policies relating to American colonies under King George III; and the United States’ mishandling of the Vietnam War. This last topic takes up more than half of the book.
As a contribution to history, the book had a mixed reception. The journal Foreign Affairs described the book as ‘in the Tuchman tradition: readable, entertaining, intelligent. It should lead a wide audience to think usefully about ‘the persistence of error.’ The New York Review of Books saw value in what Tuchman said, noting: “Systems and theories therefore should not be imposed on the past. The facts of the past should be allowed to speak for themselves. Why did history have to teach lessons anyway? Why can’t history be studied and written and read for its own sake, as the record of human behavior…?” The Review concluded “History is not a science, it is an art. History needs writers, or artists, who can communicate the past to readers, and that has been Tuchman’s calling.”
However, yet another review, Kirkus Reviews commented, “An exercise in historical interpretation such as this, tracing a single idea through a set of examples, is structured toward [Tuchman’s] 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.
Similarly, another review criticised the book as having followed “the conventional, not to say threadbare, lines which the liberal media developed in the 1970s: that American involvement in Vietnam was, ab initio, an error which compounded itself as it increased and was certain to fail all along. [Tuchman] thereby falls into a trap which a historian who seeks to draw lessons from the past should be particularly careful to avoid: to assume that what in the end did happen, had to happen.” Finally, a review in the New York Times concluded “[A]ny way one approaches The March of Folly, it is unsatisfying, to say the least. Better books have been written about Vietnam, the American Revolution, the Renaissance Popes and the Trojan Horse. … Not only has [Tuchman] confined herself to the shallower wellsprings of history, she has committed the further sin of treating them superficially.”
These contrasting views from 1984 are illuminating, as they reflect the professional preferences and backgrounds of the reviewers. A more recent commentary, Barbara Tuchman and the Unfinished March of Folly, by Armando Mariante appeared in the Brazilian Centre for International Relations. The benefit of some distance from the original is revealing. He comments “Barbara Tuchman died in 1989. Had she lived longer, she would have found no shortage of material for a new edition—a sort of Revisited March of Folly. The themes that haunted her—governments blind to reality, institutions acting against their own interests, and leaders trapped by hubris—have only grown more pronounced in the 21st century. From the invasion of Iraq to the climate crisis, from democratic erosion to reckless confrontations between nuclear powers, the world has continued along the same tragic trajectory she so carefully traced: the deliberate repetition of mistakes in the face of knowledge.”
His theme is clear, as is his perception of Tuchman. He suggests many of the tragedies of history are not the result of ignorance, but of knowledge ignored or discarded. Tuchman wasn’t trying to argue about error, but rather something worse, the stubborn persistence in error despite clear and repeated warnings.
We can think of many examples. There’s the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 which can be described as a near-perfect reflection of her analysis of the Vietnam War 20 years earlier: This was another conflict launched under false assumptions, driven by ideology, and resistant to correction even in the face of mounting disaster. Mariante suggests she had noted “the familiar manipulation of intelligence to justify policy, the suppression of dissenting voices, and the elevation of national prestige over prudent restraint.”
He has some other telling examples. He suggests the COVID-19 pandemic, was a global crisis predicted by scientists, yet when it struck it was met with unpreparedness, denial, and politicisation. He comments that she would have been “struck by how governments in many countries dismissed expert warnings, undermined public health authorities, and allowed ideology or image to outweigh clear medical guidance”. He suggests she would have concluded the pandemic response wasn’t the lack of information, but a failure to act on what was already known—an archetypal march of folly, with devastating human cost. More recently, if she had seen the recent U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, “she would likely see the familiar pattern of choosing force over diplomacy, ignoring historical context, and underestimating the dangers of escalation.”
Tuchman wasn’t trying to provide a detailed account of what happened back at the historical times she considered. Rather she saw her account as ‘a ledger of warnings’. From her perspective, history is not just a chronicle of the past—it is a mirror held up to the present. It is hard not to agree with Mariante, as he reflects on a world where people continue to make avoidable mistakes, that appears to almost deliberately forget what it once knew, and that as a result repeats tragedy of her ‘march of folly’. If she had been a journalist, then her articles would be considered as offering an almost startling consistency. Mariante suggests her voice still calls out, “not to admonish, but to remind us that knowledge and power without wisdom is peril. If the march of folly continues today, it is not because we do not know better—we do—but because we choose not to act on what we know. And in that choice, Tuchman might warn us, lies the gravest threat of all”.
I think that was the way in which many people saw her work. However, others, like Keith Crook, saw Barbara Tuchman as a less than meritorious example of the popular history movement that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. Crook summarises her model of folly as examining situations defined by actions being taken when there were feasible alternatives ignored in favour of the foolish course of action that was adopted. However, The March of Folly is concerned with folly that should have been obvious at the time by rational observers, and her criteria included that it must be a group decision made “beyond any one political lifetime”.
Are these criteria met in her four examples? As far as Crook sees it, possibly not in the eyes of an analytical historian. For that matter, he suggests, neither do many of the dozens of examples of historical folly that are included in her introductory chapter. However, Crook isn’t offering unrelenting criticism, and balances his concerns about historical accuracy with other observations. He notes how beautifully Tuchman uses the English language, as well as including very interesting anecdotes about the figures in her narratives. “For example, we learn that the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Francis Dashwood, was also a notorious rake who founded the infamous Hellfire Club. Make no mistake, this is a pleasant read for a reader interested in casual history, but is it good history?”
Here is the point: it is clearly the case that she is wrong in many details, although some errors have only become apparent in the last forty years of continuing scholarship. He is willing to concede she offers a great deal, but on the American Revolution he concludes “Overall, though this piece is masterfully written, I found it superficial and offering nothing new.” That observation made me think. Am I reading Tuchman on the American Revolution because I want a detailed and up-to-date review of the history of this event, or because she is offering a helpful and enlightening overview. As he concludes: “I contend that Barbara Tuchman is a superb wordsmith but has aged poorly as a historian. By all means, read The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam for a masterclass in how to make history appear to come alive, but if one wishes to learn more about the historical follies covered in this book, there are much better options.”
Can I amend that closing comment: there are much better options available today, and Crook offers an interesting and important critique of The March of Folly. Forty years after it appeared, we know so much more, and we are aware of many misunderstanding s that existed back in the 1980s. Does that mean we can’t read and enjoy historical studies written back several years ago?
That takes me back to my initial comments. We do want to read books about issues that excite us or that confuse us, about topics we want to explore, and often we wish to read stimulating contributions on a topic without being subjected to the demands of academic precision. We also do like to spend time looking at ideas, even if they they turn out to be rather slight, oversimplified, and possibly somewhat misleading. What we don’t like is to find ourselves embedded in non-fiction to then discover it isn’t non-fiction, it is a form of fiction closer to fantasy. With so much being written in so many forms and in so many places, the task of judgement is almost impossible. We read about some interesting research, and have relatively little confidence that this is accurate information, or sales-worthy exaggeration.
This must be especially critical in relation to works about the past. History is a critical subject. We can never experience the past. Apart from physical objects, nothing else remains. This includes both objects – clothes, swords, buildings and more – but also written records. We are inclined to think that the written record from the time has to be a source of certainty. However, we know enough to be confident that the written record of events in the past is as unreliable as the written record is of events today. We read something happened: then or now. The explanation of anything more than physical matters is the result of interpretation, of what is included, what is left out, what is ‘understood’ and what has been ‘interpreted’. That set of issues is further complicated by the fact that each successive piece of writing about an event is then also influenced by what has been written before, by the interests and prejudices of each succeeding commentator, and what has been learnt over time.
I sometimes go back to reading one of my older history books – Trevelyan on British History. The story he tells is engaging, and paints a picture of how the Uk evolved from tribal enclaves through to a single unified (OK, almost unified) state. It’s a compelling, fascinating account. Today I am aware that much of it is incorrect in details, sometimes the result of misunderstandings, sometimes the result of relying on evidence that has since been overthrown, re-examined and re-interpreted. I suppose this doesn’t concern me too much. First of all, I believe that change is always taking place, and that the past isn’t just different but ‘a foreign country’. Second, I am interested in the motives of writers, and know that putting pen to paper is a matter of what story you want to tell.
Does this concern me? Not really, as I am well aware that I should read history books and articles and be clear in my own mind what it is I am considering. If this is meant to be a ‘true account’ of what took place, I immediately read with caution. If I am told these are the facts of what took place back then, I am equally cautious. If the writer declares the account is intended to offer a picture of what took place at some point in time, based on what many agree was likely, I am reassured: it’s a work in progress, and the author is being duly cautious. If the writer is making it clear that this is a ‘story’, a faction if you like, offering a perspective on what might have happened, then I am intrigued to see what evidence is offered to support this version of the story of the past, but I am equally concerned to bear in mind that a good story doesn’t mean it is an accurate story.
My own view is that we need a current Barbara Tuchman, another articulate contemporary critic who will help us discern some of the latest examples of those ‘most compelling paradoxes of history: the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests’. I am interested in how we view past actions, and what those accounts tell us about our views of human nature, of political and social systems and of so much more. My personal interest is in viewing the past as providing insights into how the world we are living in today might have developed. What I need from the books I read is to be encouraged to think, and to expand my understanding. As I consider The March of Folly, I am hoping to be encouraged to think, but not to be persuaded this is some kind of final truth. Perhaps I should ask, who should I be reading today who meets that need?
