Plague By Barbara Tuchman

Introduction

The famous historical Barbara Tuchman was known for being one of the best known American writers and historians of her time. She was born in to a very wealthy and prestige family, her interest in history was adopted through her lifestyle. Her father was not only a banker, philanthropist, and publisher but was also the president of the American Jewish Committee from 1941 to 1943. Her uncle, Henry Morgenthau Jr., served as the Secretary of Treasury under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. While growing up she attended private schools in New York and received a B.A. degree from Radcliffe College. After graduating she went on to work for her father's magazine, The Nation. She was interested in history at this time and began researching historical subjects to place in the magazine. At this time she met her husband, Dr. Lester Reginald Tuchman, and went on to have three daughters through the years (Brody) (Tuchman, 2005). 

Discussion

As she being an historian, Barbara Tuchman writes about many different events in history with in her life. In a chapter titled, "This Is the End of the World: The Black Death" taken from A Distant Mirror, she presents facts and information about Europe during the time of the Bubonic Plague. She starts the story by going in to detail on how the disease arrived in Europe. This sets the ground floor for information in to the society living and suffering from the disease. She begins by focusing on one civilization in Europe at a time, and proceeds to go in to detail about how each component of that society was affected. She does this by working her way down through each level of authority in the community (Tuchman, pp. 313-326).

Through doing research, she was able to give specific names for each noble and statistics about the plague. I think by providing name references it helped to bring more meaning to the history and writing. She then turns her focus on to the peasants and how the plague affected their way of life. I think she gave a great overall perspective of the bubonic plague. It was a tough subject to write about, but she made the information very interesting for the reader (92). 

The passage introduced is taken from a book of collected essays by Barbara Tuchman entitled, Practicing History. In the book, she gives references to history and includes her personal opinion on ...