The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam

by Barbara W. Tuchman

Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Barbara W. Tuchman, author of the World War I masterpiece The Guns of August, grapples with her boldest the pervasive presence, through the ages, of failure, mismanagement, and delusion in government.   Drawing on a comprehensive array of examples, from Montezuma’s senseless surrender of his empire in 1520 to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Barbara W. Tuchman defines folly as the pursuit by government of policies contrary to their own interests, despite the availability of feasible alternatives. In brilliant detail, Tuchman illuminates four decisive turning points in history that illustrate the very heights of the Trojan War, the breakup of the Holy See provoked by the Renaissance popes, the loss of the American colonies by Britain’s George III, and the United States’ own persistent mistakes in Vietnam. Throughout The March of Folly, Tuchman’s incomparable talent for animating the people, places, and events of history is on spectacular display.   Praise for The March of Folly   “A glittering narrative . . . a moral [book] on the crimes and follies of governments and the misfortunes the governed suffer in consequence.”—The New York Times Book Review   “An admirable survey . . . I haven’t read a more relevant book in years.”—John Kenneth Galbraith, The Boston Sunday Globe   “A superb chronicle . . . a masterly examination.”—Chicago Sun-Times

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, War, World History, Military History, Audiobook

647 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Barbara Wertheim Tuchman, historian, won a Pulitzer Prize for The Guns of August (1962) and for Stilwell and the American Experience in China (1971).

As an author, Tuchman focused on popular production. Her clear, dramatic storytelling covered topics as diverse as the 14th century and World War I and sold millions of copies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara...

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Babs is one crafty, talented instructor and this ranks highly among the BEST history books I've had the pleasure of reading. You should be reading it right now.

Seriously, I mean it.

This is the second gem by Barbara Tuchman that I've tackled, after the stellar The Guns of August), and the impressiveness of her work has led to my developing rather intense, and possibly inappropriate, feelings for her. I'm smitten.

You see, Babs writes history in such a colorful, engaging manner that you don't notice she's shoveling mounds of knowledge into your memory muscle. You're so interested that you just glide along the pages, absorbed in her narrative web, while she's filling your brain with smarts. It's downright spooky. Honestly, how often can you truly say that you've overdosed on happy reading a history book. Yes, she's that good.

PLOT SUMMARY

To qualify as "folly" for this book, Tuchman explains that actions need to meet all four of the following criteria:

1. The actions must be clearly contrary to the self-interest of the organization or group pursuing them;

2. The actions must be conducted over a period of time, not just in a single burst of irrational behavior;

3. The actions must be conducted by a number of individuals, not just one deranged maniac; and

4. MOST IMPORTANTLY, there must have been a significant group who "at the time" pointed out, correctly, why the action in question was folly (i.e., no Monday morning quarterbacking or 20/20 hindsight).

Tuchman spends some pages at the beginning of the book describing a number of "bonehead" and "assclowny" decisions in history that didn't qualify as folly, either because they were a single instance of governmental psychosis, or because they were carried out at the command of a dictator and not a coordinated governmental policy.

Based on the above criteria, Babs looks at four primary examples of FUBAR "folly" in history:

The Fall of Troy: The loss of Troy as a result of the Trojans' failure to question the deployment of the "Trojan Horse" by the Greeks. While interesting, this for me was easily the "weakest" part of the book, mainly because there is just not enough historical knowledge on the subject for Tuchman to analyze convincingly. She managed to keep me engaged with her stylish delivery, but I think this segment was likely included in order to have the book span a larger swatch of world history.

The Renaissance Popes and the Protestant Reformation: The reign of the Renaissance Popes and how their excesses, and their failure to recognize the growing discontent among the Church members, led directly to the Protestant Reformation. I loved this section and it was easily my favorite of the whole book. After finishing this portion, I immediately went about trying to locate other books on the period. It was a fascinating time. Now if I can only get Babs to re-write these other books to make them more interesting.

How the Britsh lost the American colonies: Another superb section of the book. What I found most interesting about this discussion of the major events that led up the American Revolution is that Tuchman spent most of her time looking through the eyes of the British, in contrast to peering through the eyes of the American colonist, which is the more common perspective used in studies of this period. Despite my general familiarity with this period, I found this to be very enlightening.

The failure of America in Vietnam:. A terrific end to an amazing survey of history. My only quibble here is that I think Tuchman's "objectivity" may have slipped away to make a sandwich or take a nap because you can readily see that she was strongly against the war. Nothing wrong with that, but I prefer not to be able to read historian's personal views in the work. Still, her analysis is excellent, well supported, and she lays out the history in a very engaging manner.

Overall, this is as good as histories get. Engaging, informative and wonderfully delivered. I would call this a must for history fans or fans of military history.

6.0 stars. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!!

[Maziyar Yf · Rating 4 out of 5]

تاریخ بی خردی اثر خانم باربارا تاکمن ،کتابی ایست در نقد بی خردی حاکمان که با کم عقلی خود هم زندگی اکثریت را عوض می کنند و هم جان انسان ها را می گیرند . کتاب پنج بخش دارد که من سه قسمت آنرا نسبتا مرتبط با هم یافتم . اولین بخش آن مربوط به زمان پاپ ها و برخورد آن ها با پروتستانیسم و رنسانس هست . که پاپ های اروپا و علائق آن ها و نگاه کاسب کارانه و زندگی سرتاسر فساد آن ها ( و البته علاقه آنها به هنر نقاشی که باعث پدید آمدن شاهکارهایی بی بدیل از میکل آنژ، رافائل و دیگر بزرگان هنر شد ) را نگاهی سریع می اندازد . این بخش کتاب نسبتا خسته کننده بود و البته تقریبا همه می دانیم جامعه چگونه تحت لوای دین اداره می شود . قسمت دوم چگونگی جدا شدن آمریکا از بریتانیا و اشتباهات در تصمیم گیری های دولت مردان انگلیسی هست که ابر قدرتی مانند آمریکا به وجود آمد و از این قسمت کتاب ، خانم تاکمن با یک نتیجه گیری عالی ، "این که آمریکایی که خود محصول جنگ با قدرت مسلط زمان خود بوده و برای استقلال می جنگیده ، در کمتر از 200 سال به کشوری متجاوز تبدیل شد که استقلال کشورهای دیگر را تهدید و نابود می کرد " خواننده کتاب را متوجه می سازد که هر آن چه تا به حال خوانده در
اصل مقدمه ای بوده برای این مطلب و این فصل : آمریکا در ویتنام به خود خیانت می کند .
در این فصل خانم تاکمن به ذات مورخی خود بر می گردد و تک تک وقایعی که باعث حاتم بخشی ویتنام به فرانسه ، پشتیبانی مالی آمریکا از استعمار فرانسه ، تقویت کمونیست در ویتنام ، جنگیدن برای استقلال و سرکوب آن توسط فرانسه و با پول آمریکا ، شکست فرانسویها و فرار آنها ، تجزیه ویتنام و خلاصه تا گردن فرو رفتن آمریکا در باتلاق ویتنام ، رد کردن طرح های صلح توسط هر دو طرف و بالاخره فرار آمریکاییها از بام سفارت آمریکا در ویتنام جنوبی را با جزئیات فراوان شرح می دهد . اوج هنر خانم تاکمن در ارجاع دادن حماقت های مقام های آمریکا در جنگ ویتنام به تاریخچه بی خردی هایی ایست که نویسنده در فصل های قبلی شرح داده . مثلا این سیاست احمقانه سرکوب توسط زور در ویتنام ، دقیقا همان سیاست شکست خورده ای بود که انگلستان در آمریکا دنبال می کرد . این که متاسفانه حماقت در سطح جهان از بین نمی رود ، بلکه از نسلی به نسل دیگر منتقل می شود . این که هزینه این حماقت ها را ملت های ویتنام ، کامبوج و لائوس با تلفات میلیونی خود و خانواده های فقیر آمریکایی پرداختند . این که جرج بوش پسر(که دوران خدمت خود را به جای ویتنام و برخلاف پسرهای کارگران آمریکایی در تگزاس سپری کرد ) بدون آنکه جنگ را ببیند با حماقت خود آمریکا را در دو جنگ دیگر درگیر کرد که عواقب آن را تمام ملتهای خاورمیانه و در راس آن عراق و افغانستان با خون خود داده اند . و این که آمریکا که تا قبل از جنگ ویتنام همواره پشتیبان آزادی و دموکراسی بوده ( حداقل یک نمونه اش در کودتای 28 مرداد برای ما ایرانی ها آشناست !) چگونه خود به قدرتی استعماری بسیار بی رحمی تبدیل شده و این گونه به اهدافی که دویست سال قبل برای آنها جنگیده ، خیانت کرده
نکته ای که خانم تاکمن خیلی ظریف به آن اشاره می کند وظیفه اخلاقی یک ملت است ، تکلیف کسانی که به جنگ طلبان چه دموکرات چه جمهوریخواه رای میدهند چیست ؟ آن ها چقدر در کشتار کودکان ویتنامی با بمب آتش زا یا نابود کردن امید یک ملت به آینده سهیم هستند ؟ اکثریت خاموش هر جامعه چه قدر مسئول است ؟ آیا با بی تفاوتی و خود را به خواب زدن وجدان انسان می تواند تبرئه شود ؟
خانم تاکمن در سال 1989 درگذشت و متاسفانه روزگار فرصت نداد که انواع و اقسام تحریم هایی که دولت های آمریکا و رای دهنده های آمریکایی حامی آنان وضع کرده اند ، که مثلا در عراق باعث کشته شدن پانصد هزار کودک شد ، یا همین تحریم هایی که ما با آنها روبرو هستیم و شدیدترین نوع تحریم های تاریخ هستند ، این که چگونه انسان هایی عاری از هرگونه شعور مانند جرج بوش و ترامپ ، با تصمیم های اشتباه ، زندگی را برای میلیونها تن یا نابود کرده یا برای همیشه تغییر داده را ببیند . که اگر باربارا تاکمن زنده بود و تکرار این گونه بی خردی ها را می دید ، به راحتی می توانست کتاب های دیگری در راستا و هدف همین کتاب تاریخ بی خردی این بار مثلا از ویتنام تا خاورمیانه را به نگارش آورد .

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought 'The March of Folly' would be a good read to balance out the optimism of The Wisdom of Crowds. Turned out to be a great hunch.

Why?

Indeed, Tuchman's book does in fact emphasize that very optimism. Tuchman's 'Follies' are committed not by the common people but by closeted leaders, lacking in common-sense and cut-off from ground realities. Do I need to mention the Yes-Men that surround them?

Tuchman takes up a panoramic view of human history and exposes these decisions, and wonders with us how much Folly it took to make these disastrous calls.

Surely common-sense would not have allowed these?

Given the scope of this exercise, Tuchman has limited herself to the most famous historical examples of these foolish decisions, ranging from the Trojans bringing the Trojan horse into their walls, and the Renaissance popes provoking the Protestant succession, to the German decision to adopt unrestricted submarine warfare in World War I (thereby triggering America’s declaration of war), and Japan’s Pearl Harbor attack that similarly triggered America’s declaration of war in 1941.

But we can extrapolate them into any number of follies that we are familiar with in our own countries and see how leaders make the stupid mistakes over and over again, and incomprehensible mistakes at that.

This irrationality is what astounds us when we look back on these gross errors of judgment and Tuchman is especially scathing in dealing with the leaders who make such choices: “Persistence in error,” “wooden-headedness," “refusal to draw inference from negative signs,” and “mental stagnation” are a few choice examples.

This should make us conclude that the main message of the book, and of history, is one of Tolstoy-ian embrace of the 'Wisdom of the Masses'? It is quite a powerful argument and one we would dearly love to embrace - it gives us the possibility of a future where we can side-step such follies, by avoiding these very decision making practices. And that is very very important too.

However, I think there is one more angle to be considered here.

Consider Tuchman's emphatic statement:

“Chief among the forces affecting political folly is lust for power, named by Tacitus as ‘the most flagrant of all passions.’ ”

This however, introduces another aspect to the 'folly' we address. It is possible that these 'leaders' were in fact trapped in a competitive spiral - any leader who did not pursue these 'follies' would have been scorned and lost his job - precisely because those were widely held to be the correct things to do.

This sort of decision making is in fact quite common - leaders always follow the popular 'wisdom' and usually it turns out to be right. But there are times in history when this normal course of action fails.

There are times when the circumstances are too inter-dependent or too much at the edge-of-the-cliff that no-one, not even common-sense, could have anticipated the fall that was coming by taking the steps that should have been matter-of-course at any other point.

These are the points when good practices suddenly seem like Follies.


This is why we have to consider the possibility that these were not just 'follies' arising from the closeted and exclusive nature of these leaders, but from a confluence of pressures that left them little wiggle room - and most importantly, that this is more or less always the case with leaders - their decisions are not always their own. Just as in the modern business world - where the financial sector, market signals and impulses make business leaders slaves to the quarterly bottom lines, irrespective of whether that bottom line is congruent with a company’s, let alone society’s, longer-term well-being.

So the March of Folly could well be as unstoppable as it sounds to those leaders as well, especially in the short term when history rushed in on them.

This is not (of course!) to say that these leaders were not culpable for their decisions, or even, god forbid, to excuse their 'stupid' advisors and Yes-Men. It is however dangerous to assume the other extreme position - that if only 'common-sense' prevailed, much evil could have been avoided.

No.

That sort of thinking only allows us to make the same mistakes again, precisely because common-sense would allow it!

[Alireza · Rating 3 out of 5]

اگه از خانم تاکمن شناخت کافی داشته باشید میدونید که اگه در مورد مطلبی بخواد صحبت کنه بسیار جزئی و دقیق و با رفرنس‌های بی‌شمار بهش می‌پردازه. کتاب در مورد بی‌خردی انسان‌ها در طول تاریخ هستش و چهار پنج نمونه جالب از زمان داستان اسب تروا تا جنگ ویتنام رو شامل میشه
این مساله از یه نظر خیلی خوبه چون کاملا بادقت و حوصله میتونید یه موضوع رو باهاش جلو ببرید ولی از اون طرف هم بده اگه اون موضوع یا فصل مورد علاقه‌تون نباشه خیلی سخت تموم میشه.
در کل به نظر من مجموعه‌هایی که خانم تاکمن نوشتن زحمت خیلی زیادی برای پژوهش و جمع‌آوری اطلاعات کشیده شده و واقعا باارزش هستند ولی این کتاب رو در مقایسه با کتاب توپ‌های ماه اوت در سطح ضعیف‌تری می‌بینم البته شاید موضوعات انتخابی ایشون خیلی برای من جذابیت نداشته.
در مورد ترجمه آقای کامشاد هم با اینکه ایشون کتاب‌های خوبی توی کارنامه‌شون دارن حس میکنم گفتار کتاب تاحدی ثقیل هستش و متن در گذشته مونده و یه .سری اصطلاحات و لغات الان کاربرد کمی دارند و شاید در ویرایش‌های جدید میشد بعضی از کلمه‌ها و عبارت‌ها رو امروزی‌تر کرد.

[Mohammad · Rating 4 out of 5]

گفته شده هیچ تفاوتی نداره که یک نفر چند سال روی کشتی کار کرده؛ او هیچوقت به توفان عادت نمی‌کنه و هر بار وسط توفان خیال می‌کنه این دفعه دیگه کارش تمامه. بی‌خردی هم همینطوره. اگر یک حاکم بی‌خردی‌های سرنوشت‌ساز تاریخ رو مطالعه کرده باشه (بر فرض محال)، باز هم خیلی بعیده سر بزنگاه‌هایی که باید تصمیم گرفته بشه، یک تصمیم خردمندانه بگیره. خودکامگان که طبعاً دارای عقلی ناچیزند، اغلب از یاد می‌برن که نمیشه اندیشه‌هایی که زمانش فرا رسیده رو با خفقان و سرکوب خاموش کرد. بی‌خردی بر خلاف تصور اولیه‌ام، از الگوهای پیچیده‌ای پیروی نمی‌کنه. باربارا تاکمن گوشزد می‌کنه که نباید در تحلیل تاریخ زیاد تعمق کرد؛ چون موجبات اغلب کاملاً سطحی هستند. زرق و برق و تاثیر قدرت ما رو می‌فریبه و خیال می‌کنیم که صاحبان قدرت کیفیتی برتر از افراد عادی دارند. در حالی که تمام پادشاهان دست‌خوش داوری‌های نادرست، سهو، خطا و شتاب‌زدگی هستند. البته بی‌خردی مورد نظر نویسنده، مواردی هستند که در ابعاد کلان بر سرنوشت عده‌ی زیادی از مردم مثل یک ملت یا یک قاره یا حتی جهان تاثیر گذاشته‌اند. هر چند تاریخ بی‌خردی رو میشه به سیستم‌های کوچک‌تر هم تعمیم داد. انتخاب فصل مورد علاقه‌ام کار سختیه؛ با این حال فصل پاپ‌های رنسانس رو بسیار دوست داشتم. نثر فاخری که حسن کامشاد برگزیده، لذت خواندن کتاب رو صدچندان کرده

[William2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A highly readable account of four instances of human folly over the last 2800 years. These include the Trojans's unaccountable bringing of the Trojan horse into Troy; the transgressions of the Renaissance Popes which brought on the Reformation; the loss by Britain of the American colonies; and America's own pointless war in Vietnam. The last section reminds me very much of Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie, which was written several years later than Tuchman's narrative. Her book is vivid, clear, unfussy, with just the right density of diction. It never flags. Highly recommended.

[محمد شفیعی · Rating 5 out of 5]

تاریخ بی‌خردی، تنها یک کتاب تاریخی نیست؛ کتابی است که برش‌هایی از تاریخ را از منظری جدید نگاه می‌کند و این امکان را به ما می‌دهد تا با تعمق در آن‌ها، بتوانیم بی‌خردی تصمیم‌گیری‌های هرروزهٔ سیاسی و اجتماعی را در اطرافمان کنکاش کنیم و به آن‌ها پی ببریم. از این منظر کتابی است که نه‌تنها برای مطالعهٔ تاریخ، بلکه برای دید پیدا کردن به عواقب تصمیم‌گیری‌ها در دیگر عرصه‌های اجتماع نیز می‌تواند مفید و کارساز باشد. همچنین ادبیات روان و داستان گونهٔ آن کمک می‌کند تا به‌راحتی خوانده شود و قابلیت استفاده عمومی هم داشته باشد.

یه معرفی از این کتاب در سایت سیاست پارسی نوشتم می تونین کلشو اونجا بخونین

https://siasateparsi.ir/fa/news/2804

[Tioarifi · Rating 3 out of 5]

کتاب شامل چند اتفاق تاریخی هست که بی خردی حاکم ها و تصمیمات خیلی ریز و تعریف میکنه!
تروا
پاپ ها
انقلاب آمریکا
ویتنام
توی این چند بخش برای من داستان تاریخی پاپ ها و نحوه به قدرت رسیدن و دست داشتن در حکومت جالب بود .
برای انقلاب آمریکا به نظر من سلام اول خیلی کتاب بهتری بود
شاید چند سال بعد مجدد بخونم..

[Julio The Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Never ascribe to malice what can best be explained by stupidity".---The Law Of Hanlon's Razor

A year ago I read this stunning headline in an American newspaper: WITHDRAWL FROM AFGHANISTAN SHOWS THE U.S. LEARNED ABSOLUTELY NOTHING FROM VIET NAM. That is precisely the topic of Barbara Tuchman's book, published almost forty years ago. Why and how do governments keep on repeating the same follies in war and politics? Tuchman defines folly as "pursuit of objectives contrary to self-interest". She has plenty of material to draw from, of course, from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (how could Japan plan to launch a sneak attack and not provide for the inevitable American war to the finish?) to "the current imbecilic intervention in El Salvador". Here she has chosen to focus on six case studies of political and military blunders, but I shall highlight the best three from her book. The classic folly, classic in every sense, is the Trojan horse story. What sane person, in the middle of a war, convinces himself that the other side wants peace and is willing to prove it by bringing a giant gift to the inside your compound? (Want proof? When Anwar Sadat visited Israel in 1977 the Israelis had sharpshooters all-over Ben-Gurion airport in case Sadat and his boys came out with guns blazing.) Using the Trojan horse for a prototype Tuchman then investigates two closely related colonial wars, the American Revolution and the Viet Nam War. In the first instance, how did the British persuade themselves they could inflict penalties on a loyal colony, from taxation to the stationing of British troops in private homes, and not expect a backlash? And, once the war began, how did they intend to supply an army 2,000 miles away operating on foreign soil? The last chapter, "America Betrays Herself in Viet Nam" illustrates the same level of self-induced illusions leading to crimes: create a fake nation with a puppet government, designate South Viet Nam of "vital interest to the national security of the United States" so its leaders could literally sit back and let the Americans fight and finance the war, and, when the war turns horribly wrong just fix the problem by sending more troops, and then more, and then light will appear at the end of the tunnel. I'd like to say nations learn from their mistakes but Tuchman is not that optimistic. She had earlier written STILWELL AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IN CHINA as a parable advocating for U.S. non-intervention in Asia. No one in Washington paid attention.

[Jamie Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

In October of 1962, as the world lurched toward disaster during the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy found that most of his advisors, including the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff, were recommending a full scale invasion of Cuba. Kennedy, however, had read Barbara Tuchman’s recently published Guns of August and was mindful of how miscalculation, incomplete information, and incorrect assessments of the willingness of other nations to fight had led the world into a war which none of them wanted or expected to fight. Modern historians now dispute the idea that World War I was caused by a cascading series of accidents, but it gave Kennedy a reason to seek something other than escalation. Attacking Cuba could have resulted in the USSR attacking American allies, with the fighting possibly spreading to global thermonuclear war, and millions, perhaps billions, of casualties.

It is a safe bet that no one in the Bush Junior administration read Tuchman’s March of Folly before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, but then Bush himself has probably never read a book in his life. Had any of them done so they might have recognized the implications of statements like“War is a procedure from which there can be no turning back without acknowledging defeat. This was the self-laid trap into which America had walked” and “Disgrace of a ruler is no great matter in world history, but disgrace of government is traumatic, for government cannot function without respect” and “What is clear is that when incapacity is joined by complacency, the result is the worst possible combination.” That last quote pretty much sums up the entire Bush administration.

March of Folly looks at several key moments: the fictional events surrounding the fall of Troy, useful for what they say generally about failing to assess a situation properly; the inability of the Papacy to control the Protestant schism started by Martin Luther; the events leading up to the loss of Britain’s American colonies; and the American involvement in Vietnam.

To meet her criteria for folly, all four of the following must be present:
- The actions must be clearly contrary to the self-interest of the organization or group pursuing them
- They must occur over a period of time, not just in a single burst of irrational behavior
- They must be conducted by a number of individuals, not just one deranged maniac
- They must have been perceived as counter-productive in their own time, not merely in hindsight.

Certain baleful traits show up over and over: arrogance (we can crush those pathetic fools), ignorance (what is our goal here anyway?), short-term political calculations (what will boost us in the polls?), and an inability to tell when the situation has become hopeless (let’s continue doing what has already failed again and again and see if it will work this time).

The best history books reach across time and illuminate the present as well as the past. Of all the passages I highlighted in this book none of them brought me to a complete stop like this one, “For two centuries, the American arrangement has always managed to right itself under pressure without discarding the system and trying another after every crisis, as have Italy and Germany, France and Spain. Under accelerating incompetence in America, this may change.” I ended up highlighting 148 passages, emphasizing the ones explaining the debacles around the loss of the American colonies and in Vietnam, and have decided to group some of them and let Tuchman speak in her own words. As the philosopher George Santayana said, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”


Loss of the American Colonies

- The colonies were bent on redress of grievances and autonomy in their own affairs, not on independence.

- If revenue from the colonies to pay the cost of their defense was what Britain wanted—which was reasonable enough—she could and should have put it to the colonies to raise it themselves.

- The evidence was ample that taxation by Parliament would meet adamant resistance in the colonies. It was ignored because the policy-makers regarded Britain as sovereign and the colonials as subjects, because Americans were not taken too seriously, and because Grenville and his associates, having some doubts themselves as to the rights in the case, wanted to obtain the revenue in a way that would establish Parliament’s eminent domain.

- Americans tended to see a conscious plan to enslave them in every British measure. They assumed the British were more rational, just as the British government assumed they were more rebellious, than was true in either case.

- the Government’s instinct was punitive. Having maneuvered itself into a situation of challenge from its subjects, it felt obliged to make a demonstration of authority, the more so as it was feared that American protest, if it succeeded, would inspire the spirit of emulation in English and Irish mobs.

- Britain’s interest might have suggested at this point a review of the series of increasingly negative results in the colonies with the aim of re-directing the by now alarming course of events. That would have required thought instead of mere reaction, and pause for serious thought is not a habit of governments.

- By uniting the colonies into a whole, the Coercive Acts accomplished the same cohesion in the adversary as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor accomplished two centuries later—and with ultimately the same result.

- Insistence on a rooted notion regardless of contrary evidence is the source of the self-deception that characterizes folly. By hiding the reality, it underestimates the needed degree of effort.

- The Grenville, Rockingham, Chatham-Grafton and North ministries went through a full decade of mounting conflict with the colonies without any of them sending a representative, much less a minister, across the Atlantic to make acquaintance, to discuss, to find out what was spoiling, even endangering, the relationship and how it might be better managed.

- They persisted in first pursuing, then fighting for an aim whose result would be harmful whether they won or lost.

- It has been said that if the protagonists of Hamlet and Othello were reversed, there would have been no tragedy: Hamlet would have seen through Iago in no time and Othello would not have hesitated to kill King Claudius. If the British actors before and after 1775 had been other than they were, there might have been statesmanship instead of folly, with a train of altered consequences reaching to the present. The hypothetical has charm, but the actuality of government makes history.

Indo-China

- Ignorance of country and culture there may have been, but not ignorance of the contra-indications, even the barriers, to achieving the objectives of American policy. All the conditions and reasons precluding a successful outcome were recognized or foreseen at one time or another during the thirty years of our involvement.

- The folly consisted not in pursuit of a goal in ignorance of the obstacles but in persistence in the pursuit despite accumulating evidence that the goal was unattainable, and the effect disproportionate to the American interest

- The question raised is why did the policy-makers close their minds to the evidence and its implications? This is the classic symptom of folly: refusal to draw conclusions from the evidence, addiction to the counter-productive.

- It is a dismaying fact that throughout the long folly of Vietnam, Americans kept foretelling the outcome and acting without reference to their own foresight.

- Dulles, the new Secretary of State, was a cold war extremist naturally, a drum-beater with the instincts of a bully, deliberately combative because that was the way he believed foreign relations should be conducted. Brinksmanship was his contribution, counter-offensive rather than containment was his policy, “a passion to control events” was his motor.

- Americans were always talking about freedom from Communism, whereas the freedom that the mass of Vietnamese wanted was freedom from their exploiters, both French and indigenous.

- Having invented Indochina as the main target of a coordinated Communist aggression, and having in every policy advice and public pronouncement repeated the operating assumption that its preservation from Communism was vital to American security, the United States was lodged in the trap of its own propaganda.

- why did not the Eisenhower Administration put it all together and, given the President’s great prestige at home, detach itself from a losing proposition? In the bureaucracy, doubtless no one did put it all together; and besides, the fear of being “soft on Communism” abided.

- having committed American policy to [South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh] Diem, as once to Chiang Kai-shek, officials felt the same reluctance to admit his inadequacy.

- Diem exerted the perverse power of the weak: the greater his troubles, the more support he demanded—and received. In a dependent relationship the protégé can always control the protector by threatening to collapse.

- The reason why Diem never responded to the American call for reform was because his interest was opposed. He resisted reform for the same reason as the Renaissance popes, because it would diminish his absolute power.

- Reflection thereafter might have led to the conclusion that to continue a war for the sake of consolidating a free-standing regime in South Vietnam was both vain and non-essential to American security, and that to try to gain by negotiation a result which the enemy was determined not to cede was a waste of time—short of willingness to apply unlimited force.

- The American failure to find any significance in the defeat of the French professional army, including the Foreign Legion, by small, thin-boned, out-of-uniform Asian guerrillas is one of the great puzzles of the time. How could Dien Bien Phu be so ignored?

- For the ruler it is easier, once he has entered a policy box, to stay inside. For the lesser official it is better, for the sake of his position, not to make waves, not to press evidence that the chief will find painful to accept. Psychologists call the process of screening out discordant information “cognitive dissonance,” an academic disguise for “Don’t confuse me with the facts.”

- To continue for that time to invest American resources and inevitably lives in a cause in which [Lyndon Johnson] no longer had much faith, rather than risk his own second term, was a decision in his own interest, not the country’s.

- In the nervous tension of his sudden accession, Johnson felt he had to be “strong,” to show himself in command, especially to overshadow the aura of the Kennedys, both the dead and the living. He did not feel a comparable impulse to be wise; to examine options before he spoke.

- Forceful and domineering, a man infatuated with himself, Johnson was affected in his conduct of Vietnam policy by three elements in his character: an ego that was insatiable and never secure; a bottomless capacity to use and impose the powers of office without inhibition; a profound aversion, once fixed upon a course of action, to any contra-indications.

- Hanoi would accept no settlement short of coalition or some other form of compromise leading to its absorption of the South; for the United States any such compromise would represent acknowledgment of American failure, and this the Administration, all the more now for having made itself hostage to its own military, could not accept.

- In the American forces, short-term one-year tours of duty, intended to avoid discontent, prevented adaptation to irregular jungle warfare, thereby increasing casualties since the rate was always highest in the early months of duty.

- Strategy remained unchanged because the Air Force, in concern for its own future role, could not admit that air power could be ineffective.

- McNamara, like Bethmann-Hollweg in Germany in 1917, continued in the Pentagon to preside over a strategy he believed futile and wrong. To do otherwise, each would have said, would be to show disbelief, giving comfort to the enemy. The question remains where duty lies: to loyalty or to truth?

- No better able to make the enemy come to terms acceptable to the United States, the new [Nixon] Administration, like the old, could find no other way than to resort to military coercion, with the result that a war already rejected by a large portion of the American people was prolonged, with all its potential for domestic damage, throughout another presidential term.

- Nixon and Kissinger, whom the President had chosen to head the National Security Council, would have done well to consider their problem as if there were a sign pinned to the wall, “Do Not Repeat What Has Already Failed.”

- “Vietnamization” in effect amounted to enlarging and arming ARVN. Considering that arming, training and indoctrinating under American auspices had been pursued for fifteen years without spectacular results, the expectation that these would now enable ARVN successfully to take over the war could qualify as wooden-headedness.

- Recalling the conditions of 1970, an American sergeant who had been attached to a South Vietnamese unit said, “We had 50 percent AWOLs all the time and most of the [ARVN] company and platoon leaders were gone all the time.” The soldiers had no urge to fight under officers “who spent their time stealing and trafficking in drugs.”

- Watching [protests] from a balcony [during the 1968 Republican National Convention], Attorney-General John Mitchell, Nixon’s former law partner, thought “It looked like the Russian Revolution.” In that comment, the anti-war movement took its place in the eyes of the government, not as citizens’ rightful dissent against a policy that large numbers wanted their country to renounce, but as the malice and threat of subversion. It was this view that produced the “enemies list.”

- The new political order in Vietnam was approximately what it would have been if America had never intervened, except in being far more vengeful and cruel. Perhaps the greatest folly was Hanoi’s—to fight so steadfastly for thirty years for a cause that became a brutal tyranny when it was won.

- What America lost in Vietnam was, to put it in one word, virtue.

- The follies that produced this result begin with continuous over-reacting: in the invention of endangered “national security,” the invention of “vital interest,” the invention of a “commitment” which rapidly assumed a life of its own, casting a spell over the inventor.

[Somayeh · Rating 4 out of 5]

"اگر بشر می‌توانست از تاریخ پند گیرد، چه درسها که تاریخ به ما نمی‌داد! ولی شهوت و حزب‌بازی جلو چشم‌مان را می‌بندد و روشناییِ تجربه فانوسی است در عقب کشتی که فقط بر موجهای پشت‌سرمان می‌تابد."
خواندنش را به دوستداران تاریخ و سیاست و جامعه شناسی توصیه می‌کنم. نثر تاکمن بسیار گیرا و جذاب است و ترجمه هم روان و مناسب بود.
جالب/تاسف‌بار آنجاست که بی‌خردی‌های تاریخی بارها و بارها تکرار شده و خواهند شد.

[Mohammad · Rating 4 out of 5]

بالاترین جولان‌گاهِ بی‌خردی هنوز حیطه حکومت است چون آن‌جاست که آدمی بر دیگران تسلط می‌یابد و سپس تسلط بر خود را از دست می‌دهد.

برای من که نه مورخم و نه تاریخ می‌دانم، نثر تاکمن موهبتی است. او تاریخ را قابل فهم، دقیق و در عین حال شیرین روایت می‌کند.  تاریخ بی‌خردی شرح بخش کوچکی از بی‌خردی های بزرگ تاریخ بشریت است. تاکمن شرح این تاریخ را از تروا و رحبعام شروع می‌کند، با پاپ های رنسانس و انقلاب آمریکا پی می‌گیرد و در نهایت با جنگ ویتنام به پایان می‌رساند. واقعا کتاب مهمی است. من که بسیار آموختم و لذت بردم. یکی از علاقه مندی های من تاریخ رنسانس و قرون وسطی و رمان‌های تاریخی این دوره است. به همین خاطر بخش پاپ های رنسانس را خیلی دوست داشتم. پاپ های این دوره واقعا نوبر بودند‌. بخش های دیگر کتاب هم درخشانند. علاوه بر رحبعام و تروا، دلایل اصلی انقلاب آمریکا و شکست سیاست آمریکا در جنگ ویتنام بدون طول و تفضیل و با نثری درخشان در فصول جدا گانه آمده است. من که مطمئنم هر از گاهی به عنوان مرجع به آن رجوع خواهم کرد.
همه این حرف‌ها به کنار چه کیفیت چاپ خوبی! چه نشری و چه مترجمی! حرفی برای گفتن نمی‌ماند.

[Arianne X · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Invention of God is the Greatest Folly of Man

My Criticism of the Book

It is always easy to fall into the temptation of interpreting history or explaining events with a singular idea, a simple theory or through one lens. This is part of what Barbara Tuchman does in presenting folly as the independent explanatory variable in defining the dependency of human action.

No general theory of folly is offered in the text. This is because no such theory is possible. But I am of course tempted to offer my own singular explanation of the folly observed in human affairs which is that the invention of God is the greatest (not the only) human folly. I think the God theory and its true belief corollary goes far in explaining human hubris, over confidence, barbarism, cruelty, and folly but it is not complete or comprehensive. Still, God’s greatest power is the ability to create and cause human enmity for no rational reason. This power is the means by which folly is imposed. But I must be careful not to make the same mistake as Barbara Tuchman. Barbra Tuchman does at least say that folly is the rejection of reason. But so is religion, so we are back to God as the source of ‘all’, well most, folly.

I do not think the examples in the book meet the author’s definition of folly which is “pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interest.” This definition implies knowledge that such actions are knowingly contrary to the interest of those pursuing the policies. I found that much of the behavior presented in the four cases could be explained by short-term thinking, over confidence, simple-minded arrogance or plain incompetence. In these cases, the decision makers thought they were pursuing the best interest of their realm, nation or self but were acting with over confidence, underestimates of consequences, overaction to events, self-righteous stubbornness, in the momentum of proceedings, acting on ‘principle’, or with short-term but rational goals in mind versus an assessment of long-term benefits or consequences. Added to this is that they were just acting within the social context of their time and the political framework of their surroundings. In this case, there is no general theory of folly. What Barbra Tuchman describes as folly could just as easily be called hubris, self-deception, self-dealing greed, miscalculation, bad judgement, narrow-mindedness, credulity, false hope, and short-term thinking. The book is really such a tale told through four examples, one legendary, Troy, and three historical, Renaissance Italy, the American Revolution, and the Vietnam War. I do not understand the example of the Trojan Horse in that this is a fictional event. There are many examples of real human folly from which to choose. In any case, the notion of folly is an afterthought in these histories, but the book is still a fun and enjoyable read for the history of the four examples offered. There are of course many more examples of human cruelty, barbarism, hubris and folly one could offer.

The Question

The fundamental question asked by Barbara Tuchman is, “Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points, and enlightened self-interest suggests?” Further, why does human performance in government more often fail than any other human activity? Why is experience, pragmatism, evidence and plain common sense less operative and more often frustrated in the activity of government than in other human endeavors?

My Answer (The Higher Cause)

In Praise of Folly

We march toward folly in pursuit of a higher cause or a true belief. My hypothesis is that the problem with government, and the leadership of the state, is that it is pursued for the sake of an ideal, or a higher cause than to which enlightened self-interest or human reason points. This is the great danger when the performance of government and the leadership of the state is done based on true belief or in pursuit of a higher cause. This is often something abstract, transcendent, or religious. True belief (corollary to the invention of God) is the most dangerous force on earth and a constant threat to reason and evidence based pragmatic governance (corporate or national). True belief provides people with a cause worth fighting and dying for and this is the end of rational behavior.

Reason, experience, pragmatism, evidence, and plain common sense are operative and simply taken for granted in other areas of life such as commerce precisely because other human activities such as commerce, trade, business, science, recreation, art, and entertainment are free from the disease of true belief and are not pursued for the sake of a higher transcendental goal, an abstract reason, or for religious credence and mythical belief. Folly as such is ubiquitous, it is independent of government form, regime type, time and place because the human yearning for something more profound than the every day, work-a-day, live-a-day routine life is never enough. Of course, routine is the most underappreciated state of affairs not missed until it is lost in the mind-bending pursuit of some higher ideal. Mental processes based on reason and knowledge cease to operate in the face of a universal ideal, a preconceived notion, a higher cause, or a true belief. It is very easy to ignore evidence contrary to a fixed higher belief.

In short, the invention of God is the greatest folly. Religious belief is the righteous armor beyond which the slings and arrows of outrageous reality cannot prevail. Belief in God is about bringing into the open the attempt to reconcile hidden fears with wish fulfillments; it combines weakness of mind with wickedness of action in trying to resolve the contradictions and problems of the human condition – a very human thing to do and the wellspring of human folly. Religious belief is most often tied to the state and employed as governing principle; hence the greatest human folly takes place in government and in the management of the state, e.g., I cannot resist pointing out the Christian folly at the heart of the Trump administration.

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tuchman's The March of Folly is spotty. First of all, too much attention is paid to Troy, about which nothing is known, historically speaking. All that section does is provide a simile or two for what follows. Also, she actually is stronger in another classical case not mentioned in the title or in most descriptions of the book, viz. that of King Rehoboam of Israel. Second, the account of the involvements of France and the United States in VietNam is of a journalistic quality not in keeping with the rest of the book, though it may well have been her motive for writing it. I appreciated the refresher course, but it does not have the historical character of her two best studies, viz. that of those Renaissance popes who precipitated the Protestant Reformation and that of the British government which lost most of the American colonies. On the Renaissance popes I appreciated the clear survey of ineptitute as the period is not well-known to me. On the Americas I appreciated the overview of the revolution as she worked so much from the position of England, rather than from the wearisomely familiar perspective of the colonists.

[Kaveh Rezaie · Rating 5 out of 5]

شايد با خواندن اين كتاب از بار رواني اي كه سنگيني اش را هميشه حس مي كنيم كاسته شود! اينكه نزديك به سه هزار سال پيش تا كنون، همه حكمرانان كاري جز اين نكرده اند كه تمامي خطاهاي پيشينيان را تكرار كنند، اينكه هرگز در حكمراني، عبرت و عقل كمترين جايگاهي ندارد، اينكه در اين 30 قرن، بشر در همه چيز پيشرفت هايي بسيار يا لااقل دگرگوني هاي فراواني داشته است، بجز عرصه حكمراني، هم انسان را راحت مي كند و هم ناراحت. راحتمان مي كند كه ما در اين زمانه تافته ي جدا بافته نيستيم و هميشه حاكمان بي عقل به روشهاي شبيه يكديگر، تيشه به ريشه منافع مردم و ميهنشان زده اند. پس تنها نيستيم و اين حسِ خوبي است! نيز از آنجا كه حاكمان بي خرد بيش از همه به منافع خود زيان مي رسانند، عدم خود را روزبروز نزديكتر مي كنند و اين هم البته حس خوبي است!
اما اينكه بايد ديد بشريت با اين همه ادعاهاي "دهن پر كن" در اين زمانه مانند حقوق بشر، نه تنها كمترين فرقي با - بقول امروزيان- بشر وحشي 3000 سال پيش نكرده بلكه در فريبكاري و كشت و كشتار بالاتر از آنها قرار گرفته، اينكه مردم از همه جا بي خبر بايد تاوان اشتباه ها، حماقت ها، جاه طلبي ها، فساد و توهم هاي افراد حاكم را بپردازد، و اينكه تاريخ بي خردي را گويا كه پاياني نيست، البته كه ناراحتمان مي كند.

[Omid Abd · Rating 4 out of 5]

این کتاب سفری هست روحی و ذهنی به عمق تباهی و بی خردی بشریت که نه زمان میشناسد و نه مکان ...در گذر از تروا تا آزتک .. از مونتزما تا آگامننون از کوته نظری جانشینان پطروس حواری تا حماقت های لیندون جانسون و ریچارد نیکسون ... انگار که از لحظه شروع بیگ بنگ تا کنون و از ۲۵۰۰ تاریخ تفکر و تلاش وکوشش افلاطون و ارسطو و از نیچه تا مارکس و رسو و جان لاک برای شناخت اخلاق و حاکمیت و حقوق بشر هیچ‌چیز عایده این مخلوق گناهکار نشده .. در این جهان پهناور که همواره دست خوش تغییرات و جنگ ها و مداخلات گوناگون بوده که همگی نه براساس عقل و اندیشه و خرد ورزی که همگی همانا برپایه جهل فساد خرافه پرستی و کهنه پرستی زمین را به سمت نابودی برده اند و تنها زمانی که بشر به این حقیقت رسید که انچه در ذهن او شکل میگیرد همواره از حقیقت و راستی سرچشمه نمیگیرد بلکه ناشی از تفکرات و حالت روحی و خامی هست که براساس شرایط و محیط رشد یافتن بر او تحمیل شده شاید آنگاه بتواند با اسایش خاطر در سایه خرد به زندگی بدون اختلاط در یک آرمانگاه به حیات ادامه دهد

[Owen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Barbara Tuchman is a first-rate writer and historian whose books I have much enjoyed. For some years now I have been meaning to get a copy of "The March of Folly," since it is a book which greatly appeals to me in its concept. To look at the history of modern man (since about 1,000 BC) and take examples of real foolishness on the part of a number of key governments, and try to see why they so acted, strikes me as a wonderful idea for a book. However, I can now say, somewhat reluctantly, that "The March of Folly" is not up to the standard of Tuchman's earlier books. I find this curious indeed and have been wondering for some time why it is so.

Firstly, the writing is not up to par and I can only put this down to sloppy editing. Some of the oddest phrases in the book are so un-Tuchman like, that I imagine they have been written by a researcher and, for whatever reason, have managed to sneak by both the author and her editors. Tuchman is usually crisp and succinct. Some of this text is laborious and redundant; it's most surprising. Perhaps this first fault leads to the second, although not entirely. In "The Guns of August" and "The Proud Tower," Tuchman seems to be in very complete command of both her history and her sources. In "The March of Folly," one begins to wonder if she has not strayed too far afield and is rather unsure of her ground. So it appears to me, especially with reference to the beginning of the book, where she discusses both the siege of Troy and then the Papacy during the Renaissance, when she seems very shaky indeed. Or it may be that this apparent instability is founded on limited research and that that has been allowed to come through in the book. Whatever the reason, I find that the book does not live up to its promise, either conceptually or authorially.

The sections on the American Revolution and the Vietnam War are interesting in themselves, but one wonders at times, given the detail involved in both cases, if Tuchman is not actually off the rails. The fact that there is no stated plan at the beginning of the book (chapters and sub-headings and synopses, I mean) makes me wonder indeed, just how much of a plan she had. So I think you can read this book for its individual content (i.e., if you happen to be interested in the particular periods covered), but the disappointment overall is that the really first-rate text that one might have expected, does not materialise. I will say that the essay at the end is very Tuchmanesque and is a brave attempt, quand même, to tie the threads of the book together. Yet I'm unsure of just how far she can get away with a text that smacks so readily of invention and understudy, and in my opinion, the epilogue is hardly sufficient, by itself, to save the whole. I suppose it is just possible that she and I both got carried away by the title.

[Sud666 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barbara Tuchman is an amazing historian. I love reading her books and then wishing I had even a small fraction of her writing ability. In "The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam", she does precisely as the title states and proceeds to take the reader on a journey from 1194–1184 BC all the way to 1973 AD. The uniting theme?

"Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government than of almost any other human activity. In this sphere, wisdom, which may be defined as the exercise of judgment acting on experience, common sense and available information, is less operative and more frustrated than it should be. Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests? Why do intelligent mental process seem so often not to function?"

Though written in 1984, what could be more apropos a thought in our current political choices in 2021? In essence, this is a case study of "misgovernment". Think of "government" as a verb and not a noun. She states that misgovernment can be found in four kinds (often in combination):
1. Tyranny or Oppression
2. Excess ambition
3. Incompetence and decadence
4. Folly or perversity

Then as she states "This book is concerned with the last in a specific manifestation; that is, the pursuit of policy contrary to the self-interest of the constituency or state involved. Self-interest is whatever conduces to the welfare or advantage of the body being governed; folly is a policy that in these terms is counter-productive." I loved the fact that she points out that it must be judged counter-productive in its own time, not merely by hindsight. This is important because all policy is determined by the mores of its age. "Nothing is more unfair, than to judge men of the past by the ideas of the present. Whatever may be said of morality, political wisdom is certainly ambulatory."

Absolutely and well said. Then she proceeds to show four historical examples of "Wooden-headedness", as she calls it, and what the alternatives could have been. First starting with a chapter showing examples of pursuing contrary policy she then focuses on the first of the four. It is the prototype of future folly, starting in the mists of Time, with the Trojan War. Tuchman looks into why exactly the Trojans took in the Wooden Horse.

Then we transition to the year 1470 AD and look at the Renaissance Popes. Especially the stretch of 1470-1530 where the Catholic Church manages to destroy their own credibility and provoke the Protestant Secession. Looking into a string of either corrupt or inept Popes and their reign we are introduced to such fascinating figures as Sixtus IV (Francesco della Rovere, 1471-84); Innocent VIII (Giovanni Battista Cibo, 1484-92); my personal favorite, Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia, 1492-1503)..side note, yeah he, father of Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia fame. Also Friar Savonarola's "Bonfire of Vanities". Then we move on to Julius II (Giuliano della Rovere, 1503-13). A warrior Pope, famous for his association with Michelangelo. He also created the crisis with the Indulgences that were to provoke Martin Luther into his protest.

We then move on to 1763-83 analysis of why the British Empire lost control of America. Taking into account a variety of players, Tuchman looks at the beliefs and misconceptions that abounded in the minds of the holders of high office in England.

Finally, forward to 1945, she looks at the policy that led America to enter Vietnam. Starting with the complexities of the French and their inability to get along with anyone not French, she looks at how the French, in their desire to try to retain Colonial influence, threatened to not cooperate with the US in Europe, unless the US provided support for the French efforts in Vietnam. Tuchman shows how America betrayed its principles in supporting a colonial policy that in turn gradually dragged in the US military and eventually had the US fighting against North Vietnam for seven years, just to leave so that Communists could commit democide on the South Vietnamese anyways. Democide, BTW, is the murder of any person or people by their government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder. Statistics vary but when the Communists, after victory, in Saigon decided to reduce the population of Saigon, which had become swollen with an influx of people during the war and was now overcrowded with high unemployment. "Re-education classes" for former soldiers in the ARVN indicated that in order to regain full standing in society they would need to move from the city and take up farming. This grand Communist utopian scheme resulted in anywhere from 1.5 million people being displaced. An additional 200,000-300,000 met a grisly end in "Re-Education" camps. Sadly this would have happened regardless, as is the case where any Communist regime rules (remember dissent is not a collective ideal, freedom of speech, belief, and thought are anathema to Communists, just as it is to Nazis.) Something to bear in mind. Leftism, like Far Rightism, is inimical and antitehtical to the normal political gamut of liberal to conservative.

Thus ends a fascinating review of folly through the span of man. In this day and age, we do love to forget the past. The idiocy of the past is something we presume to have outgrown. Thus THIS time, they (the leaders, the media, the pundits, etc) have it all right. THIS time humanity will see an era of progress and love and humility...blah blah blah. Obviously, I do not believe it. History does not repeat, but if you study enough of it you'll find a tale that is as detailed and implicit in our very DNA. While the overall arcs of history trend(in certain historical charts of development) to peak upwards, do not forget that the timeline has its peaks and valleys. Woe unto you who dwell in such interesting times. But, hey, no worries at all. THIS time these guys have it ALL figured out (the media says so). Cool beans. Do I believe them? About as much as I believe in God :) Anyways, I'll get off my soapbox... I plan on checking out in about 2 decades or so, thus I shall not be around to see the outcome. Enjoy yourselves! I've got weed to smoke, shit to do, and places I've never seen before to visit. But hey for the rest of you stuck here? Why not read this excellent history book about folly throughout the human ages? It might help you question everything you hear and remember that governments don't always "govern" well to their best advantage and the costs often take decades to manifest. As with anything Tuchman touches-it's magnificent.

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book Tuchman takes a step beyond the traditional historian's story-telling role to provide color-commentary about a specific subset of examples of misgovernment that she classifies as "folly." Not all examples of misgovernment can be classified as folly as explained in the following quotation.

"Misgovernment is of four kinds, often in combination. They are: 1) tyranny or oppression ... , 2) excessive ambition ... , 3) incompetence or decadence ... , 4) folly or perversity. This books is concerned with the last in a specific manifestation; that is, the pursuit of policy contrary to the self-interest of the constituency or state involved. Self-interest is whatever conduces to the welfare or advantage of the body being governed; folly is a policy that in these terms is counter-productive."

Her definition of folly:

“To qualify as folly for this enquiry, the policy adopted must meet three criteria: It must have been perceived as counter-productive in its own time, not merely by hindsight. This is important because all policy is determined by the mores of its age...Secondly, a feasible alternative course of action must have been available. To remove the problem from personality, a third criterion must be that the policy in question should be that of a group, not an individual ruler, and should persist beyond any one political lifetime.”

The book then examines in detail four events from history that fit her criteria of folly; (1) Actions taken regarding the Trojan horse that led to the subsequent fall of Troy, (2) Actions taken by the Roman Catholic Papacy leading up to the Protestant Reformation, (3) Actions taken by the British government that lead to the American Revolutionary War, and (4) Decisions that led to American involvement in the Vietnam War. The Protestant Reformation and American Revolution are obviously significant turning points in world history. The fall of Troy is profound because it became a founding myth for Western Civilization. Inclusion of the Vietnam War in the book was a tilt toward commentary on a more recent example of folly, and is probably not all that significant in the long view of history. But the Vietnam War was fresh in the minds of readers when this book was first published in 1984, nine years after the fall of Saigon.

Implicit in Tuchman's definition of folly is the suggestion that if individuals in power at the time had been wiser the subsequent history could have played out in a peaceful manner. But my impression from the book is one of inevitability (or is it fate?) from the entangled politics of the times of each of the four historical events studied. It's interesting to note that people were present at the time of each event that anticipated and warned of needed reform or change in policy. But in each case the political inertia of the power structure was such to make heeding the warnings impossible.

Subsequent history supports the book's view regarding the folly of the Vietnam War. This book's review of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War was a painful reminder for me of my own memories of living through that era in real life and real time. I see ominous parallels with current events in Afghanistan.

The following is a link to an excerpt from the book about "popes, power, and unrestrained lust:
https://delanceyplace.com/view-archiv...

My Goodreads.com friend, Jamie Smith, has noted a number of highlighted quotations from this book at the following link:
https://www.goodreads.com/notes/12146...

[Hosein · Rating 5 out of 5]

قبل از تموم شدنش می‌دونستم قراره یکی از کتاب‌های تاریخی مورد علاقم بشه، مثل تمام کارهای تاکمن که قبلا خونده بودم یک سبکی از نگارش رو داره که از اون خشکی معمول آثار تاریخی دور میمونه. به طور کلی جز یکسری "فان فکت" بین خطوط بخشی نبود که از قبل ندونم و مشخصا من خیلی اطلاعات تاریخی ندارم، مشخصا برای خیلی‌های دیگه هم همینه و می‌شه گفت به طور کلی کتاب هم سعی نداره دیدِ مخاطب به تاریخ رو عوض کنه.

شاید به نظر بیاد که حجمش برای چهارتا بخش داشتن زیاده و هر بخش رو خیلی عمیق بررسی کرده، ولی اونقدر هم وارد جزئیات نمی‌شه و یک فرمول مشخص رو توی هر بخش داره. میشه گفت یکسری جاها متن نمونه ی "حرف زدن، بدون چیزی گفتن" می‌شه که به خاطر قلم خوب تاکمن اذیت کننده نیست.

و ایکاش تاکمن زنده بود، از دیدن ایران این روزها لذت می‌برد.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

About 8 years ago when I read this book I would have given it 4 stars. It gets a 5 today simply because it is much more pertinent to read it now.

Barbara Tuchman is one of the great writers of history. She remembers the first rule of history: Tell a story. In this one she tells several and keeps your attention better. The theme is imaginative and appropriate. It is also not a very long book so you can easily read it in a week.

Barbara Tuchman has a way of viewing history as few can. Instead of falling back on just "telling of a story," Tuchman does what few historians are able to pull off without sounding self-rightious. She gives us a comentary. Kind of like the "color-man" while listening to a sporting event, Tuchman examines the idea of "folly," or the persistent pursuit of a policy by government or those in power that is "contradictory to their own interests." Since a topic like this could take volumes, the author chooses 4 primary historical examples: the Fall of Troy, the breakup of of the Holy See in the 16th century, the British monarchy's vain attempt to keep the American colonies, and America's own arrogant persistence during the Vietnam War.
The fault in this book is that this subject matter can be pretty exhausting even with the only 450 page book. The examples used are valid and make sense. The author finds something different within each one that allows us to see the many levels of government folly. However I found the chapters dealing with the six terrible popes to be mind-numbing. Perhaps it's due to the fact that this history is not examined extensively in current day curricula like the American Revolution and Vietnam, but I think this section was tedious and repetitive. Also, within the Vietnam chapters, Ms. Tuchman tends to reveal her adoration towards Kennedy--like many historians of her era--and her disdain of the Johnson and Nixon administrations. This can distort her objective examination of the topic in some areas, but if it is noticed and ignored, the rest of the study is outstanding. Some may read these excerpts and label them as "liberal" but they are ignorant of history.

In any event the book is an excellent supplement to studying Machiavellian politics. The governments' "wood-headedness" towards policy that is counter to anything rational (as well as contrary to respected voices of reason) is something that all ordinary members and voters of a democratic society ought to take heed of.

The example of Troy is used simply as an example of how Homer and the Greeks had foreseen and probably experienced, the lack of reason when pursuing particular policy. This is usually done because those in power are so consumed by power and what it brings, that their arrogance and ignorance blinds them.

Without carrying this review too far into the book's wonderful and biting commentary, I will just say that this book is recommended, but not for those that have no real experience with intellectual historical study. Some areas will be interesting, such as the Vietnam chapters, but otherwise the book would dull the amateur historian. But if you do wish to challenge yourself and your understanding of how power corrupts and destroys after it corrupts, then "March of Folly" will be admired.

All politicians should be forced to read this book. Kind of like a supplement instructional manual for their job...paid for by taxpayers. Within 100 years, they might actaully learn something.

[Russell Bittner · Rating 5 out of 5]

The March of Folly is an unfortunate title. Or maybe not so unfortunate. Because, after all, what is folly?

Barbara Tuchman gives us several examples of the human animal at its worst — but parading at its best. From Ancient Troy right up through Vietnam (can a sequel including Chechnia, the former Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan be far behind?), we have proved ourselves to be little better than the apes. If there’s a difference, it’s only in the splendor of our rebarbative behavior. Kings, Popes, Ministers, Generals … it’s all the same. And the tragedy? Invariably, the loss of so many young lives to no real purpose other than to serve the interests of ambition, pride, ignorance, stubbornness — in short, of vanity.

Yes, vanitas, vanitatis. It’s all right there in Ecclesiastes, and not much has changed. We are a prideful, belligerent, deceitful, artful, malignant, umbragious — a word I learned in reading this book—species. In short, we’re prone to folly.

And who pays the ultimate price of that folly? Our youth.

I cannot remember being so disheartened by a book since I read, at a young and impressionable age, A History of Torture — or more recently, Martha Gellhorn’s The Face of War. If you want to continue believing that “all is best in the best of all possible worlds,” don’t read this book. If you want to continue believing that we are governed by people who know what’s best for us, don’t read this book. If you want to believe that the march of history is inevitable, don’t read this book.

Ignore my suggestions at your own risk. But if you don’t, be prepared to undertake a life of activism — and don’t expect it to be a happy life. To buck folly is to question our very essence. And our essence would appear — if Ms. Tuchman’s major premise is to be believed — to be tragically farcical. That, or farcically tragic. The case of the former President Lyndon B. Johnson in one of this book’s final chapters could easily rival that of Shakespeare’s King Lear.

RRB
07/19/13
Brooklyn, NY

[Chris Jaffe · Rating 1 out of 5]

Man, talk about phoning it in....

Years ago I read Barbara Tuchman's famous "Guns of August" and thought it was great. So I'd give this one a shot. Big mistake.

She's just slumming it here; not trying very hard. The theme is times in history when a nation engaged in folly - self-defeating behavior. That's a pretty broad theme that in encapsulate tons of examples. She focuses on four items that don't really have much to do w/ each other, but she felt like talking about. Well, really three things (she spends just one brief chapter on the fourth item, Troy in the Trojan War).

The big three are Renaissance Popes, British policies that cost them their 13 North American colonies, and the US stumble into and through Vietnam. Nothing really links these things except "self-defeating folly" and that's just a weak hook to link these things together. I never felt there were any real lessons to be learned in Tuchman's telling. She was just telling tales she felt like rehashing.

And it was just rehashing. She was retelling twice-told tales without much original thought to add. The length she devoted to her topics are the ideal bad length. On the one hand, it's too long -- at about 100 pages per part, it becomes a slog to get through each. On the other hand, it's too short. Heck, if she'd just decided to write a book about the US and Vietnam, I'd have more respect for it. At least I'd know what I was getting going into it. If the sections were shorter, the lack of original insight would be acceptable. (This is the approach of many snapshot, for-fun history books that tell you of "100 Greatest Mistakes in History" or whatever). If it was longer, maybe she'd have time to provide insight. But you get neither. It's too long to be fun and too unoriginal to be worth reading.

I mostly skimmed over the last two-thirds. I got nothing out of the first third when I tried to read it, and I didn't seem over the parts I skimmed. Just a terrible, terrible book.

[Michael Austin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The March of Folly is Barbara Tuchman, a top-flight historian, at her best. It is also history at its best. And it is people at their worst.

In nearly all of her books, Tuchman goes well beyond sterile descriptions, facts, and timelines to get to the heart of what happened and why. In The March of Folly, she does not propose to examine a specific historical event or time period. Rather, she examines an underlying cause of many historical events, which is that people are stupid. In her introduction--the most valuable part of the book --she proposes a technical definition of "folly" and applies it to a full range of historical (and mythological) situations: the Trojans bringing in the Greek horse, Rehoboam raising taxes and splitting the Davidic Kingdom, Athens' Sicilian Expedition during the Peloponnesian War, the French and English stumbling into World War I, the Germans stumbling in to World War I, the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor, and lots of others.

These situations constituted "folly" because they met the three criteria that Tuchman proposes:

1. They were against the interest of those who pursued them.
2. They were understood at the time, at least by some, to be against the interest of those who pursued them.
3. There were better alternatives available that were known and actively rejected.

The march of folly, then, is something like a slow-motion car wreck that could have been avoided, and that everybody saw coming, but that occurred anyway because one or both parties were locked into a course and lacked the will, but not the opportunity, to alter it.

The bulk of the book consists of fairly extensive analyses of three clear examples of folly in action: the Renaissance popes who failed to prevent the Protestant Reformation by persisting in depravity and extravagance long after it was clear that such behavior would not be tolerated by the nations of Europe; the arrogant British Empire that lost the American colonies by failing to realize that they could not use military force to compel obedience to people thousands of miles away who were fighting for their freedom; and the arrogant American nation that betrayed its own values and lost the respect of the world by failing to learn the lesson that they taught the British 200 years earlier.

Each of the case studies is fascinating in its own right, but Tuchman wisely does not delve deeper than she needs to for the argument she is making. All three of them are the subject of much longer and more detailed histories, and her point in the book is not to uncover history, but to understand it. She structures the three supporting narratives with as much parallelism as possible to distill the elements that they have in common. These elements can be considered the essential ingredients of folly. She does not list them as such, but these are the elements that I found most instructive (and, given our own age, 35 years after the book was published, most frightening):

First, in all three situations, the actors exhibited a sort of magical thinking about their own role in the universe. The Popes imagined that, no matter how flagrantly they flouted their offices, they were still chosen, and protected, by God. The British saw themselves as inherently superior to the colonists by virtue of their culture and their status as a global superpower; and the Americans held then, as many do now, a view of themselves as an exceptional, indispensable nation. None of them seriously thought that they could lose.

Furthermore, each of the powers had adopted a world view that was tragically incomplete, and they all fundamentally lacked the ability to understand other viewpoints. This attribute occurs in all three case studies, but it does so in different ways. The Popes saw the world largely through the lens of Italian politics, which were brutal, complicated, and all-consuming. They had their own wars with each other and, from time to time, with France and Spain. But they just didn't pay much attention to places like Germany, Sweden, and England, and they didn't understand how their actions were perceived.

The British were locked into a class-based view of the world, and they kept promoting inept peers and their inepter sons to important positions on the grounds that commoners could not be good at government or war. And because everybody in America was a commoner, they couldn't imagine being defeated by them. And the Americans were so locked into a bi-polar view of the world in which everybody was a communist or a lover of freedom. Their world view did not permit them to understand that the Vietnamese were interested in self-rule and did not care whether it came in the name of Karl Marx or Adam Smith.

In each case study too, the personal and political interests of the key decision-makers were not well-aligned with the interests of the state. During the build-up to Vietnam, for example, both Eisenhower and Kennedy had a strong political incentive to demonstrate their hatred of Communism. And the British ministers served at the pleasure of George III, who was both a doofus and a committed aristocrat. Taking a pro-Colonist position was the fastest way to unemployment.

And finally, and perhaps most tragically, the key players in all three scenarios succumbed to the rhetorical force of their own propaganda. Reform would destroy the Church, losing America would be the end of the British Empire, losing Vietnam would give the world to the Soviets. These arguments were initially advanced to further other policy goals, but, in time, they became incontrovertible doctrines that propelled people to continue a course of action for years--and in some cases decades--after it became apparent that the cause was hopeless and the consequences were not as dire as everyone believed.

It is true, of course, and Tuchman acknowledges it from the start, that it is easy to see folly in hindsight. But this is something that her initial assumptions control for, as an action cannot be considered "folly" unless there were people at the time saying exactly what people said afterwords. And this is why we should pay a lot of attention to her ingredient list today, as, in 2020, the United States (and much of the world) has all the ingredients in place: magical thinking, uncritical propaganda, a very poor understanding of what really is in our nation's interest, and a venial doofus in a position of great power who will fire anybody who says what he doesn't want to hear.

[Jennifer Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was in the 4th grade I found a book that my Mom had to read for college in the back of a cupboard. That book was Barbara W. Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror", and I do believe that is what led me to all the other history books I've enjoyed in the years since. "The March of Folly" is a study of, in the authors' words, pursuit of policy contrary to self-interest, with four main examples. The Trojan horse, The Renaissance popes, the British loss of America, and America in Vietnam. I particularly enjoyed the Vietnam section, as I've really never read anything about it before. I didn't realize what a long and twisty road it was that led to the actual fighting, but this book explains everything very well, and in detail, but never in a boring way. It's just amazing, the utter blindness and stupidity of some of the people in high places, from way, way back, up to the present time.

[Mohsen Rajabi · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب آسان‌خوانی نیست و با اینحال باید خواندش. به تاریخ از دریچه‌ای نگاه می‌کند و بی‌خردی جمعی و خودخواهی‌های بشر را در مقاطع مهمی از تاریخ نشان می‌دهد و می‌گوید که چگونه بعضی از فجایع تاریخ رخ داده‌اند
برای من چندین ماه سخت طول کشید و با اینحال خواندمش و راضی‌ام از خواندنش

[Gilbert Stack · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve enjoyed Barbara Tuchman’s books over the years, but this one didn’t work for me. Instead of an in-depth examination of folly, I felt like this work rambled from incident to incident, often spending very little time with them. It’s an interesting idea, but not, in my opinion, successfully implemented.

If you liked this review, you can find more at www.gilbertstack.com/reviews.

[Rindis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barbara Tuchman was a journalist before becoming a history author, and despite The March of Folly being a book about certain historical incidents, it is more a work of journalism than history. It is an investigation into the process by which governments embark on self-destructive courses ('folly'), despite recognition of the problem, and alternative courses being available. As such, it is more of a screed against certain practices, rather than a real attempt at balanced or impartial history.

The good news is that we're not treated to the faint sound of axes grinding. Instead, we're given front-row seats to the grinding wheel.

The book is split into four parts (with each one being longer than the last) on the Trojan Horse, the (start of) Reformation, the American Revolution, and Vietnam. Each is well written, but are effectively a completely separate work, since they just serve to try to illustrate her point, instead of having any inherent connection to each other.

The Trojan Horse section is purely illustrative of her point, since it's a discussion of myth, with little idea of what really happened. But it is a powerful story, and not a bad way to bring up themes, though I don't know that it's overly successful here.

The Reformation is really about the ten major Popes in the run up to Martin Luther's 95 Theses. As such, it paints a picture of the excesses and temporal politics of the office while calls for ecclesiastical reform go unheeded. The main problem is that it ignores that high office was seen as a means of self- (or family-) aggrandizement. The idea of the point of office being something bigger than the self is a more modern idea (this is briefly addressed in the epilogue).

The American Revolution chapter mostly deals with events before the outbreak of fighting. Tuchman considers the end result of the conflict to be fairly inevitable (and right or wrong, this assumption helps keep her on-topic), and concentrates on how British policy ended up alienating people who wanted to be part of the empire into rebelling. As such, it is a very good Britain-centric analysis of British policy and government.

Similarly, the Vietnam chapter is at its best before American troops get directly involved there. Starting with the French, and the unresolved difference in goals between them and our aid to them, it traces through the entire tragedy to the American pullout. The fighting isn't covered in any real sense, but the demands of rabid anti-communism with its fears of all communists everywhere working in concert with Moscow are well pointed out (though not as well developed as I'd like; though that'd probably be going off her topic).

An unaddressed theme that comes out of the last two parts is the fact that these crises often grow out of situations that just weren't seen as very important at the time. They were low-priority, low-impact items that only increased in importance after missteps had caused the situation to blow up. The real 'folly' may belong more to being unable to prioritize correctly, but even that is an exercise in hindsight.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always enjoy Barbara Tuchman`s ability to write compelling and accessible history be it the oubreak of WWI or the life of a french aristorcrat in the 14th Century, add to that a job which allows me to experience folly in all its glory, I had sky high expectations of the book.

The premise was so promising, noted historian takes a four egregious disatsers the trojan horse, the papal actions in the lead up to Luther, the loss of the american colonies and the Vietnam war to understand what led to the decisions. Not only a fascinating premise but hopefully informative as well. Unfortunately of all her books this one feels the most like a forced fitting of history to make a point which perhaps could be more concisely put and in many cases I thought the desire to make the argument lead her to overstate the individual actions over the broad societal forces.

It is hard to really draw lessons from the trojan horse as I would have thought it is rather likely that the whole thing is a myth written by the victors. On the Papal actions in the lead up to the reformation was it really the individual actions of some degenerates who headed up a corrupt system or was it the emergence of nationalism in Europe? Also the popes were extraordinarily consistent in their actions so it is hard to see what was folly versus ingrained admittedly self destructive custom. On the British loss of the American colonies, Tuchman compellingly makes the case that leaving any enterprise in the hands of the amateur nitwits with drinking problems that constituted the British government was not the best of ideas. I would argue that with no reform the same type of nitwit managed go on to build a very large empire and was there really anything wiser council would have done but delay the inevitable.

The strongest part of the boook deals with the Vietnam war as it is here that some of the tentatively drawn conclusions from the earlier periods seem most relevant. The dangers of group think, the courage needed to challenge the status quo and above all a ruling body that pursues principle no matter how misguided and no matter how divorced from reality. Having said all of that while interesting the whole book feels like you could have also picked examples where some of those features led to unliekly success. For example the wise thing for Churchill in 1940 would have been to negotiate peace with Nazi Germany. In that case the stand on principle versus pragmatic reality is lauded as courageous and visonary.

Interesting but not the brilliant book I was really hoping for.