Read the Microsoft Encarta instead...

This book is a historical account of four major events in history as portrayed by essayist and historian Babara Tuchman.

These events are:
The Trjoan Horse
The Popes that caused the Protestant Secession
The American Revolution
The Vietnam War

The circumstance of me coming across this book (or this book coming across me, for all you fatalists out there) was that my AP Language and Composition class chose this book to read for our 3rd grading period (one which this book made sickeningly memorable). And now the rest is history, pun intended!

The main premise of this book is set up in it's first section, entitled "The Pursuit of Policy Contrary to Self-Interest." Tuchman goes on to define folly (essentially, Governments doing stupid things regardless of what anyone with a head screwed onto their shoulders have to say) and then delves into several consolodated minor (reletively) historical events that demonstrate folly. Now, I'm no history buff, but I love reading about governments that screw up. It's practically comedy for me to read about all the dumb things world leaders do. However, Tuchman is NOT a novelist by any means, which is highly evident by her writing style (very much a "now this happened, and he said this, and then another thing happened" style). Because her style is so matter-of-fact, I was quickly lost in names and dates and what seemed like a whole lot of blah blah, technically speaking. Her use of description is very, very objective. She lost me by the 5th page.

That doesn't make for a very entertaining read for me.

Although, I'm probably not her intended audience.

Tuchman's audience in this book would be people who can read purely for information, not entertainment. Oh yeah, and people who get kicks out of reading their High School History book for the pure excitement of it. Unfortunately, I am not in either of those groups, and neither was my AP class--everyone hated it, and half the class didn't even bother to finish it.

As a matter of fact, I often had to refer to my Microsoft Encarta CD to get some of these facts straight. Come to think of it, I learned more from my Encarta CD than Tuchman's book.

Does it sound like I'm knocking the author? Well, I'm not. I went into this knowing she was a historian, and that the subject matter didn't interest me. As I said, I'm not in her audience. If you're really hard-core about your history, then giddyup lil' buddy, you'll love this book! But I'd advise the vast majority to steer clear.