Tuchman, Barbara W.  The Guns of August.  New York:  Dell.  1962. 
Pp 575. 

     Tuchman's Guns of August is history from a different cultural
viewpoint.  While most history (written by men) is event based,
with anecdotal information added for emphasis, Tuchman's female
perspective offers a different format.  Guns seems to be a strung-
together collection of personal information on the main characters. 
     Sometimes the recollections seem unconnected, as if each
little detail were added to avoid the least exclusion.  Witness the
following description:
          "Herr von Below, a tall, erect bachelor with
          pointed black mustaches and a jade cigarette
          holder in constant use, had taken up his post
          in Belgium in 1914.  When visitors to the
          German Legation asked him about a silver ash
          tray pierced by a bullet hole, he would laugh
          and reply: 'I am a bird of ill omen.  When I
          was stationed in Turkey . . . (page 120)."  
Blah, Blah, Blah.  The barrage of insignificant details is
maddening.  One is reminded of the pointless (to males)
conversations of adolescent attendants to a slumber party who go on
and on:  "HE said blah blah and then SHE said blah blah and then
her OLD BOYFRIEND showed up and . . ."  One wants to jump in and
strangle the narrator.  In "History By the Ounce (Harpers', July
1965)," Tuchman admits that she has rearranged entire narrative
schemes to include an "insignificant item" of detail. 
     Perhaps it is only socialization that causes such unpleasant
reactions.  No doubt others can control themselves.  Traditional
academic historians like to discuss abstractions and deal with
broad national and cultural issues.  Tuchman rebels against this: 
again, from "History by the Ounce,"  "I cannot comprehend the
abstract, and since the writer tends to create the reader in his
own image, I assume my reader cannot comprehend it either."  In "In
Search of History" (Radcliffe Quarterly, May 1963) she comments
that "short words are always preferable to long ones; the fewer
syllables the better, and monosyllables, beautiful like 'bread' and
'sun' and 'grass' are the best of all."
     Tuchman preferred to concentrate on writing narrative history
in artful prose, and let the "material speak and provide the
answers ("In search of History")."  Is this historical automatic-
writing?  Tuchman dismisses those who presuppose some ideological
framework on which to hang their historical narrative.  To eschew
a preconceived pattern seems to further the interests of
objectivity, but it can make a historical document unpleasant to
read for the more anal-retentive among the readers.    This loose,
detail- and relationship-oriented storytelling  seems to represent
a more feminine view of reality, and of imparting that view to the
reader.  Where a male teacher will beat Truth into your head
(Heuzinga), or leave you to draw your own conclusions (Eksteins and
Fussell), Tuchman wants to reach a conclusion WITH the reader as a
partner.  From "In search" comes this statement: " . . . the best
book is a collaboration between author and reader."  This is
collaborative decision-making at it's best.  Only here, instead of
"I dunno, what do YOU wanna eat?," the question becomes, "I dunno,
what do YOU think it means?"  But of course the discussant already
holds a preference; the negotiation is merely to ensure good will. 

     Tuchman's thesis to Guns of August is that "the generals were
in the trap of the circumstances, training, ideas, and national
impulses of their individual countries" (from "History by the
Ounce").  Here even the participants, the wagers of war, are
relieved of moral blame.  This thesis, of course is not explicit in
Guns.  In the notes on sources that follows, Tuchman soothes the
gentle reader by revealing that "truth is subjective and separate,
made up of little bits seen, experienced, and recorded by different
people . . . This is the problem that is inherent in the records
left by actors in past events.  That famous goal, 'wie es wirklich
war,' is never wholly within our grasp (page 491)". 
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