The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914

By: Barbara W. Tuchman

Published August 27th 1996 by Random House Trade Paperbacks (first published 1966)

Category: Biography

Pages: 588 pages

ISBN: 9780345405012

Description:
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 Òheaving in its pain, its power, and its hate.Ó 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; DiaghilevÕs Russian ballet and StravinskyÕs 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.