The Proud Tower,the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Guns of August,and The Zimmerman Telegram * comprise Barbara W. Tuchman's classic histories of the First World War era**During the fateful quarter century leading up to World War I, the climax of a century of rapid, unprecedented change, a privileged fe...

The Proud Tower,the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Guns of August,and The Zimmerman Telegram * comprise Barbara W. Tuchman's classic histories of the First World War era**During the fateful quarter century leading up to World War I, the climax of a century of rapid, unprecedented change, a privileged few enjoyed Olympian luxury as the underclass was "heaving in its pain, its power, and its hate." In The Proud Tower,Barbara W. Tuchman brings the era to vivid life: the decline of the Edwardian aristocracy; the Anarchists of Europe and America; Germany and its self-depicted hero, Richard Strauss; Diaghilev's Russian ballet and Stravinsky's music; the Dreyfus Affair; the Peace Conferences in The Hague; and the enthusiasm and tragedy of Socialism, epitomized by the assassination of Jean Jaur s on the night the Great War began and an epoch came to a close.Praise for The Proud Tower" Barbara W. Tuchman's] Pulitzer Prize-winning The Guns of August was an expert evocation of the first spasm of the 1914-1918 war. She brings the same narrative gifts and panoramic camera eye to her portrait of the antebellum world."-- Newsweek*"A rare combination of impeccable scholarship and literary polish . . . It would be impossible to read* The Proud Tower * without pleasure and admiration."--* The New York Times*"An exquisitely written and thoroughly engrossing work . . . The author's knowledge and skill are so impressive that they whet the appetite for more."** --* Chicago Tribune***" Tuchman] tells her story with cool wit and warm understanding."** --* Time***