tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post1220336125834426593..comments2023-11-08T19:39:01.829-08:00Comments on The Teacher's View: Barbara Tuchman Practices HistoryPaul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-79636684812860917412012-12-03T09:11:03.499-08:002012-12-03T09:11:03.499-08:00Pope, sir:
Tuchman actually discusses an historia...Pope, sir:<br /><br />Tuchman actually discusses an historian's bias in one of the essays, especially how no writer can compose without something of her bias slipping in, but one should try to limit it at all costs.<br /><br />Also, you reminded me about David McCullough. I inadvertently left him out. When the John Adams miniseries aired, I saw a documentary about him and how he researches and writes. He has a small shed in his backyard where he works. Very interesting and insightful doc.<br /><br />And the range of your knowledge always astounds me when I read your blog. If some of the Catholic popes were as gifted, they would not have waited until the 1990s to determine that Galileo was on to something and lift his excommunication.<br /><br />Thanks for reading and commenting.Paul L. Martinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-91758126338392289682012-12-03T05:27:41.006-08:002012-12-03T05:27:41.006-08:00Wonderful post.
I have always believed, in my own ...Wonderful post.<br />I have always believed, in my own humble and academically limited way, that story is everything; if your reader isn't turning the pages of your work with eagerness to get to the next sentence, you have, in some fundamental manner, failed him/her. Your erudition or c.v. does not, Mr. Author, relieve you of the responsibility to engage your reader with, simply, a well-told story.<br />I read Ms. Tuchman's book "The March Of Folly" many years ago, and while I remember little of it, I recall it to accessible, in a way that much "scholarly" work is not. I am not an educated man, so for me, this is paramount in anything I read. John Toland's "The Rising Sun" comes to mind, or one of my favorites, David McCollough's "Truman", both books of history that are by no means the dry, uninteresting drone that others of the genre tend to be.<br />I didn't know Ms. Tuchman's father was the owner of The Nation magazine; as a political moderate, it makes her suspect in my mind. (Just kidding.) But the fact of her family's liberalism should reveal something of her background as an author, but for the life of me, I can't say what that is.<br />I'm going to reread "Folly"; thanks for the excellent essay.<br />Your favorite neighbor,<br />JohnPope John The Tallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09364144521763393577noreply@blogger.com