AtomicQuote

Barbara W. Tuchman Quote

Medieval technology could raise marvels of architecture 200 feet in the air, it could conceive the mechanics of a loom capable of weaving patterned cloth, and of a gearshaft capable of harnessing the insubstantial air to turn a heavy millstone, but it failed to conceive the fore-and-aft rig and swinging boom capable of adapting sails to the direction of the wind. By such accident of the human mind, war, trade, and history are shaped.

Barbara W. Tuchman

Medieval technology could raise marvels of architecture 200 feet in the air, it could conceive the mechanics of a loom capable of weaving patterned cloth, and of a gearshaft capable of harnessing the insubstantial air to turn a heavy millstone, but it failed to conceive the fore-and-aft rig and swinging boom capable of adapting sails to the direction of the wind. By such accident of the human mind, war, trade, and history are shaped.

Related Quotes

Kids are absolutely starved for positive adult contact.

Richard Louv

Kids are absolutely starved for positive adult contact.

Tags: contact, kids, adult

Art is not about itself but the attention we bring to it.

Marcel Duchamp

Art is not about itself but the attention we bring to it.

Tags: art

The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.

Audrey Hepburn

The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.

Tags: best, life, love, inspirational

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlight...

Buddha

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlight...

Tags: family, good, happiness, health, parenting, peace, wisdom

You cannot change the past, but you can make a difference now

Avis J. Williams

You cannot change the past, but you can make a difference now

Tags: abundance creation, being, believe, consciousness, cosmic ordering, existence, fear, focus, goal setting, happiness

Today is a beautiful day. Thank you!

Ron Barrow

Today is a beautiful day. Thank you!

Tags: abundance, appreciation, available, grateful, gratitude, harmony, health, heart, human, joy

Everything around you that you call life was made up by people, and you can change it.

Steve Jobs

Everything around you that you call life was made up by people, and you can change it.

Tags: inspiration, live, make your own life, mgg, steve jobs

That's what drives science though: trying to find out the way things are, the way they were, and the way it really works. If that is your goal, then you want to make sure that your information is accu...

Aron Ra

That's what drives science though: trying to find out the way things are, the way they were, and the way it really works. If that is your goal, then you want to make sure that your information is accu...

Tags: accuracy, history, myths, science, skepticism, skepticism and religion, skepticism of religion, skeptics, truth

An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep.

Alexander the Great

An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep.

Tags: army, leadership, military, wisdom

It's so hard to find the place somewhere in the middle of the best and worst I've felt.

Ashly Lorenzana

It's so hard to find the place somewhere in the middle of the best and worst I've felt.

Tags: best, depression, emotions, feelings, moody, personality, struggle, worst
About Barbara W. Tuchman

Barbara Wertheim Tuchman (; January 30, 1912 – February 6, 1989) was an American historian, journalist and author. She won the Pulitzer Prize twice, for The Guns of August (1962), a best-selling history of the prelude to and the first month of World War I, and Stilwell and the American Experience in China (1971), a biography of General Joseph Stilwell.
Tuchman focused on writing popular history.
Tuchman was a member of the Writers and Artists for Peace in the Middle East, a pro-Israel group. In 1984, she signed a letter protesting German arms sales to Saudi Arabia.