The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam

Rating:
Summary: Studying History Can Be Frustrating
Review: Barbara Tuchman was probably getting frustrated by the time she wrote March of Folly. Because anyone who studies history learns early on just how much of human history is, well, folly. In this work, Ms. Tuchman focuses on four graphic examples of it. Sometimes the fabulous human follies actually works out (such as the American Revolution which worked out well enough for us if not for the British!) but most times it doesn't, such as Viet Nam. Nowhere will you find such a clear, relatively brief, yet very accurate and readable history of how the U.S. found itself stuck in that debacle than in this fine work. Many will be surprised how far back our involvement went, and that it wasn't all Lyndon Johnson's fault...although our involvement was brought to its inevitable climax (and failure) under his watch. So if you aren't interested in the other three "follies" Tuchman examines (Troy, The causes of the Protestant Reformation, The "loss" of America by the British) then, as another reviewer has suggested, read it for the Viet Nam part alone.

So how many of you think we're headed into a "folly" in Iraq? Hmmm - I see the show of hands is just about even. Which also goes to prove (once again) how easy it is to find folly when you have the luxury of hindsight. Nevertheless, Tuchman implores us to continue to try to learn from the past.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining history at its best
Review: Barbara Tuchman's The March of Folly certainly is an interesting and informative book. I give this excellent book 5 stars even though there are a few concerns I had on a few of her assertions and a wish for more detail in other areas.

One strength of the book is Tuchman's effort to define "folly" with a strict criteria and then compare events from history to that criteria. Basically she defines "folly" as the pursuit of policy against self-interest in the face of evidence contradicting the wisdom of the policy. Further, the "folly" must be counter-productive and the decision of a group rather than an individual. The "folly" must continue despite dissenting voices and articulated options or alternatives.

The chapters on the Renaissance Popes was very entertaining and decadent. Tuchman takes the reader through the papacy of Sixtus IV (from the powerful della Rovera family)who expanded the college of Cardinals to meet his policitical ends; Innocent VII who indulged his son and promoted the rise of the Borgia and Di Medici families in the papal court; Alexander VI who would have to be considered as the worst pope in history due to his total conversion of his religious office into a secular worldly power; Julius II (another della Rovera) who was a warrior pope and the patron of Michaelangelo; Leo X (a di Medici) who used the papacy for indulgence and gain of his Florentine family; and Clement VII who became the virtual prisoner of Emperor Charles V after the invasion and conquest of Rome.

The story of these 6 popes is a wild tale full of murder, treachery, theft, bribery, sexual depravity, and power politics. In short, the Papacy had become a secular state during this period and Realpolitic was the driving philosophy rather than a church concerned with Christianity. Tuchman indicates that a rising voice of discontent was developing, which erupts with the resistance of Martin Luther in protest against the sale of indulgences. It is on this point that I wish Tuchman had written more. The development of resistance and rebellion against Catholicism needed more explanation and historic development to parallel the decadence and worldly pursuits of the papacy. These six popes seemed insulated to the point that only secular power politics and self aggrandizement were within their range of concerns and actions. Whereas as a group they certainly practiced "folly" in terms of the credibility of the Catholic church, they each pursued rational behaviors if survival in a world of warring states and gain from office are seen as the overiding concerns of these 6 men. The Catholic papacy had drifted away from it's Christian mission and taken on new missions more realistic for a secular state. Thus the "folly" was embedded in organizational drift.

The chapters on the loss of the American colonies by the British better fit Tuchman's thesis on the nature of "folly". In these chapters miscalculations, pride, and minimization of dissenting information and voices certainly led to a break between Britian and the Colonies that was initially desired by neither party.

The chapters on the war in Vietnam certainly document the gradual fall into this crisis over the Presidencies of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. Tuchman does a good job of explaining how the French had practiced unfair dominance on their Vietnam colony, setting the stage for rebellion against western domination; how DeGaul pressured the United States to support the French in Vietnam in return for France's participation in NATO; how the United States interpreted interactions in Vietnam through the prism of the Cold War as compared to the Vietnamese who saw the conflict as a war of independence.

After reading all the wonderful examples given by Tuchman; what is the answer as to how to avoid "folly"? Tuchman sees pursuit of power as a force that sets the stage for folly. Power means that the interests of one group is advanced over the interest of another creating a competitive dichotomy of concerns and interests. Tuchman also sees vested interests contrary to the larger principles as a force that initiates "folly". Personal incompetence in persons with power allows mission drift and creates the furtile soil on which others can play for personal gain rather than collective gain. Excessive power frequently leads to disorder and injustice in many cases but a powerful central force that maintains mission goals over personal gain would also seem to be necessary. Conceptual stagnation when mental flexibility is needed also leads to "folly", primarily because adaptive leadership to new and changing conditions is absent. Tuchman gives examples of situations where policy is based on outdated principles and that when contrary information arises, the policy becomes more rigid rather than more flexible. Error is to be expected. Persistence in error is the path to "folly".

Rating:
Summary: The more things change, the more they stay the same . . .
Review: In "The March of Folly," Barbara Tuchman attempts to analyze the whys and wherefores of government's apparent insistence on the pursuit of policy that is contrary to its self-interest. From the loss of Troy through the acceptance of the Trojan Horse to the corruption of the Renaissance Popes leading to the Reformation to the British losing the American colonies to America's military involvement in Southeast Asia, Tuchman searches for the common thread behind these disasters.

Tuchman, as ever, gets the highest marks for her command of historical detail and for her clear, incisive writing style. "March of Folly" is a lean, mean 400+ pages, unencumbered by extraneous or irrelevant details. But while dense, Tuchman is always highly readable, making her one of the most accessible of the great historians. Unlike so many histories, this is a book that can be enjoyed and understood outside of a library.

The only problem with the book is that by analyzing four exemplary exercises in myopia, Tuchman comes across as sadly shaking her head, saying "You should have known better." This tsk-tsking is generally warranted -- just look at the results of each episode -- but the book would have been better had Tuchman done more to acknowledge the relative ease of connecting the dots from her late 20th century vantage point.

Slight notes of superiority notwithstanding, Tuchman's thesis is a noteworthy one -- why do governments pursue policies contrary to their self-interest in the face of such (in hindsight) obvious evidence to the contrary? Pride is, unfortunately, all too often a leading cause. While Tuchman's analysis is necessarily weakest when dealing with the fall of Troy due to lack of source material, Tuchman's analysis of the other episodes is down-right masterful. (For a more detailed Tuchman analysis of the American Revolution, check out her "First Salute," a wonderful book.)

While Tuchman provides a decent grounding in each episode, and definitely enough to understand her thesis, the reader would obviously benefit from reading up a little bit on each episode prior to working through "March of Folly."

Rating:
Summary: The more things change, the more they stay the same . . .
Review: In "The March of Folly," Barbara Tuchman attempts to analyze the whys and wherefores of government's apparent insistence on the pursuit of policy that is contrary to its self-interest. From the loss of Troy through the acceptance of the Trojan Horse to the corruption of the Renaissance Popes leading to the Reformation to the British losing the American colonies to America's military involvement in Southeast Asia, Tuchman searches for the common thread behind these disasters.

Tuchman, as ever, gets the highest marks for her command of historical detail and for her clear, incisive writing style. "March of Folly" is a lean, mean 400+ pages, unencumbered by extraneous or irrelevant details. But while dense, Tuchman is always highly readable, making her one of the most accessible of the great historians. Unlike so many histories, this is a book that can be enjoyed and understood outside of a library.

The only problem with the book is that by analyzing four exemplary exercises in myopia, Tuchman comes across as sadly shaking her head, saying "You should have known better." This tsk-tsking is generally warranted -- just look at the results of each episode -- but the book would have been better had Tuchman done more to acknowledge the relative ease of connecting the dots from her late 20th century vantage point.

Slight notes of superiority notwithstanding, Tuchman's thesis is a noteworthy one -- why do governments pursue policies contrary to their self-interest in the face of such (in hindsight) obvious evidence to the contrary? Pride is, unfortunately, all too often a leading cause. While Tuchman's analysis is necessarily weakest when dealing with the fall of Troy due to lack of source material, Tuchman's analysis of the other episodes is down-right masterful. (For a more detailed Tuchman analysis of the American Revolution, check out her "First Salute," a wonderful book.)

While Tuchman provides a decent grounding in each episode, and definitely enough to understand her thesis, the reader would obviously benefit from reading up a little bit on each episode prior to working through "March of Folly."

Rating:
Summary: Erudite, great prose and convincing.
Review: In the "March of Folly", historian Barbara Tuchman surveys four episodes in history - disparate in culture, chronlogy and geography but otherwise united in folly by the ruling leadership. Tuchman defines folly as the pursuit policy contraryr to self-interest. Self-interest is not to be confused with selfihsness, can be understood as the course that gives those who follow it the greatest benefit, whether the benefit is perceived as such. The Trojans fail to heed the warning of Greeks bearing gifts; The renaissance papacy provokes a protest; the British lose America and America loses Vietnam. In each of Tuchman's episodes, man's leadership not only trails his advances in science and the arts, but is actually inverse in relation. Tuchman's prose is always crisp and inviting and her analysis rarely lacks any power. Unfortunately, her thesis is not flawless - folly is meant to represent self-inflicted harm by government policy. This is meant to be uncomplicated by moral decisions which, given the actors involved, is not to be expected. Governments are expected to act in ways that benefit themselves. Nevertheless, self-interest is not selfishness, which, when coupled with greed or blind ambition, does more harm than benefit. (Often, a government's self-interest is to act morally, not based on any innate good, but merely because this legitmizes its rule over the people who prefer to see themselves on a moral high-ground.) The problem lies in Tuchman's equating any lack of good government with active self-harming policy, even the two shouldn't share an equal footing. Active, if ill-informed policy-making mires America in Vietnam, while the Trojans all but knock down their walls to make way for that Greek horse. On the flip side, British policy in the colonies seems clumsy, indicating that those for or against the colonies were incapable of formulating a cogent policy - the bane of a purely parliamentary system. Most lamentable, but also the most absorbing, is the case of the renaissance popes. Being at once the product of the college of cardinals and also the architect of its new generation, the renassance popes can do no more than prolong a corrupted system that bestowed upon them the papal tiara. Of the six popes cited, three actively pursue policy - while the remaining can do no more than continually tax christendom (especially the disunited German states), pursue confused alliances, arrange for lavish parties and deplete papal reserves. Under Tuchman's definition, self-harming policy is too inclusive of leadership incapable of forming policy. The corruption that bred the renaissance papacy was clearly endemic to the church of that era - with greed and manipulation of religion hardly limited to the seat of St. Peter - so it's hard to fault the popes. Tuchman clearly understands when recounting the reproach given to the future Leo X, that, were the Cardinals better men, they'd elect better popes, and all men would be better for it. Unfortunately, as Tuchman notes, the Renaissance Cardinals could not be better men because they were chosen by the poor popes to begin with, while the Popes are stymied by the fact that they were chosen by an earlier generation of imperfect cardinals. How Rome broke this cycle, vindicating Tuchman by proving the papacy capable of doing so, gets too little shrift. In fact, the renaissance papacy, while corrupt, was also remarkably tolerant, and the reformation that it bred held dire consequences in terms of war and religious persecution of the Jews, every bit as painful as the machivellian schemeing of the pre-protestant papacy. It's all exasperating, heart-breaking and entertaining, but one wonders whether these episodes should have gotten their own book.

Rating:
Summary: Timely read in light of America's new colonial pursuits
Review: It has been said that history doesn't repeat itself but it does rhyme. This is the theme of this book: a survey of folly throughout history. Tuchman provides historical analysis that reads flawlessly and is nonpartisan. Her command of history is striking. Her three main examples from history are the British Lose America, The Rennaisance Popes Provoke the Protestant Reformation and America in Vietnam. Each section is well written and historically complete. She provides background in each section that helps to understand how governments and individual personalities contribute to the pursuit of folly.

I found the book quite informative and her arguments convincing. The sections on British lose America and American in Vietnam provide spectacular insight into America's current policy in the Middle East. The only downside to the book is that she concentrates on just her main examples. The scope of her analysis is not wide and leaves out countless other examples of folly in hisotry.

Rating:
Summary: HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
Review: It is with a sad twist of irony that I find myself reading this book while living in the United States at this moment in history. All my life, I never would have thought to be witness to such an event as the current war on Iraq. I hope this sentiment piques your curiosity to read this book and try to understand the mounting dread I find growing in the pit of my stomach as I compare the actions of our current government against those mentioned in this book. Once again Santayana is proven correct:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

I hope I am proven wrong by history.

Rating:
Summary: Timely read in light of America's new colonial pursuits
Review: The basic point of "The March of Folly" is that nations can be as irrational and dysfunctional at a policy level as individuals are in managing their own affairs. To this end she cites the Trojans (in their war with Greece, and particularly in bringing the horse into their city against the dictates of caution and prophecy), the Renaissance popes, England's handling of her American colonies, and US involvement in Vietnam. The book was written in the context of the arms race with the Soviet Union just prior to Perestroika (I hope I spelled that correctly), with the hardly tacit implication that this was the Great Folly of that time.

Tuchman's definition of Folly is very precise. It's much more specific than simply "a really stupid thing to do".

"To qualify as folly for this inquiry, the policy adopted must meet three criteria: it must have been perceived as counter-productive in its own time, not merely by hindsight. ... Secondly a feasible alternative course of action must have been available. ... third ... the policy in question should be that of a group, not an individual leader."

These are quite exacting criteria. The first means that there must have been a reasoned outcry against the policy at the time. The second that reasonable alternatives were put forward. And the last that the whims of individual fools are discounted.

It's easy to look at government policies in today's world of which one might disapprove (let us suppose that, as for several other reviewers, the war in Iraq springs to mind here) and, on the assumption that they will fail, mark them as follies, but it seems to me that in any reasonably free or democratic society, there will always be arguments that a policy is "counter-productive", and many "feasible alternatives" (such as doing nothing) tabled. As such, almost any failed policy of a modern democracy will qualify as folly by Tuchman's definition.

For democracies, it seems that to qualify as folly a policy should have nearly overwhelming public support (rather than merely being pursued by a group) at least at its inception. The war in Iraq is still a wildly popular one, and so it would qualify as folly even under this criterion. Of course, it still has to fail.

Rating:
Summary: Skip to the Vietnam chapter
Review: Where is Barbara Tuchman now that we need her? As the United States pursues a "war" on "terrorism" -- the former undeclared, the latter undefined -- I fear we are heading down a familiar road that led the Trojans to open their doors to the Greek horse, the Renaissance popes to ignore the Protestant secession, the British to lose their colonies and the Americans to lose in Vietnam. All it takes, the two-time Pulitzer-winning author claims, is folly: the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests, despite the availability of feasible alternatives. Even, perhaps especially, eighteen years after publication, this book is crisp, lively, and relevant.

"The power to command" concludes the author, who earns high marks for being an independent scholar rather than an academic, "frequently causes failure to think. " Of course there are examples of individual folly, that is, folly committed by individuals. However, folly by governments is more far-reaching. Merely surrounding yourself with competent people, as apologists for George W. Bush boast, will not steer you away from folly: JFK had "the best and the brightest" working for him, yet he began to get the US deeply involved in Vietnam; fearing the right wing would think him soft on Communism, Johnson escalated the folly. It is principally for that Vietnam section, comprising over a third of the volume, that I recommend this book.

....

In The March of Folly, Tuchman does not shrink from harsh criticism of politicians. In the semi-mythical Trojan War, at least the gods could be blamed for the successful Greek ruse. The roguish, opportunist, nepotistic politicians of the Holy See, from 1470-1530, saw that they were doing wrong, but lacked either the sense or the courage to put it right and save the church. Those Renaissance popes saw the chair of Peter as a cash box for their personal aggrandizement, and a venue for their political exploits and carnal festivals -- but only because that was the way things had always been done. The British couldn't grasp that their American colonies consisted of people who, once having tasted of freedom, might be irked to have that freedom recalled and, at the same time, might not like their sweat equity in the new land become an entitlement for the lords.

The first three sections of The March of Folly are well and vividly written, a melding of historical narrative and commentary. I suspect that Tuchman couldn't wait to wrestle with the Vietnam War. Here her insight into the workings of policy makers from Eisenhower to Nixon is acute, yet dissected in an account that a layman can follow. One of the most interesting, and currently relevant, observations from Tuchman is prompted by a remark made at the time by Governor Nelson Rockefeller: "We ought all to support the President. He is the man who has all the information and knowledge of what we are up against." That, she says, "is a comforting assumption ... usually invalid, especially in foreign affairs." When pursuing liberty, America will wave its flag and invest its heart. But the current administration would do well to follow the second part of John Quincy Adams's dictum: "... but [America] goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy." Smiting terrorists for their actions is one thing, and one with an end in sight; aiming to smite terrorism, root and branch, worldwide, is not only endless, it is folly's march.

Rating:
Summary: WONDERFUL EXERCISE IN DETAILS
Review: While probably not one of Tuchman's better work, it is never-the-less noteworthy and pleasing in that the author has gone to great lengths to present her case. I like well researched books, and even though I may not be in agreement with some of her conclusions (which I am not), I admire her tenacity in making her point. The book was a easy read, as most of her works are and quite informative. Like me, you may not agree with all of her conclusions, but you will have to admit that she does give you food for thought and a door into which you can view a historical event through a bit of a different angle. Even though this was not my favorite of Tuchmans many works, it is still a valued addition to my collection and I do recommend it.