The Zimmermann Telegram

The Astounding Espionage Operation That Propelled America into the First World War

ONE OF THE GREATEST SPY STORIES OF ALL TIME 
 
Nothing can stop an enemy from picking wireless messages out of the free air - and nothing did. In England, Room 40 was born . . . 
 
In January 1917, with the First World War locked in terrible stalemate and America still neutral, German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmerman gambled the future of the conflict on a single telegram. 
 
But this message was intercepted and decoded in Whitehall's legendary Room 40 - and Zimmerman's audacious scheme for world domination was exposed, bringing America into the war and changing the course of history. 
 
The story of how this happened, and the incalculable consequences are thrillingly told in Barbara Tuchman's brilliant exploration.

A most exciting book, full of vivid pen portraits and curious episodes

As thrilling as a John Buchan novel

Its 200 pages are worth more than all the thrillers and whodunits of the fiction writers put together

A fine exciting book told with intense drama. A thriller of real life

Brilliant. Told with great literary and dramatic talent

All the ingredients of an Eric Ambler spy thriller

Magnificent. A masterpiece of the historian's art

Barbara Tuchman achieved prominence as a historian with The Zimmerman Telegram and international fame with the Pulitzer-Prize winning The Guns of August. She is also the author of The Proud Tower, Stilwell and the American Experience in China (also awarded the Pulitzer Prize), A Distant Mirror and The March of Folly. She died in 1989. The Guns of August and The Proud Tower are published by Penguin.

The Classic Bestselling Account of the Outbreak of the First World War

The Guns of August

Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August is a spellbinding history of the fateful first month when Britain went to war. 
 
War pressed against every frontier. Suddenly dismayed, governments struggled and twisted to fend it off. It was no use . . . 
 
Barbara Tuchman's universally acclaimed, Pulitzer prize-winning account of how the first thirty days of battle determined the course of the First World War is to this day revered as the classic account of the conflict's opening. From the precipitous plunge into war and the brutal and bloody battles of August 1914, Tuchman shows how events were propelled by a horrific logic which swept all sides up in its unstoppable momentum. 
 
'Dazzling' Max Hastings 
 
'Magnificent' Guardian 
 
'Fascinating, splendid, glittering. One of the finest works of history' New York Times 
 
'A brilliant achievement' Sunday Telegraph

Magnificent. A masterpiece of the historian's art

A brilliant piece of military history. A writer with an impeccable sense of telling detail, Tuchman is able to evoke both the enormous pattern of tragedy and the minutiae which make it human

War pressed against every frontier. Suddenly dismayed, governments struggled and twisted to fend it off. It was no use . . . 
 
Barbara Tuchman's universally acclaimed, Pulitzer prize-winning account of how the first thirty days of battle determined the course of the First World War is to this day revered as the classic account of the conflict's opening. From the precipitous plunge into war and the brutal and bloody battles of August 1914, Tuchman shows how events were propelled by a horrific logic which swept all sides up in its unstoppable momentum.

A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914

The Proud Tower

Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower is a haunting account of Britain on the cusp of total war - reissued for the 2014 Centenary. 
 
The last government in the Western world to possess all the attributes of aristocracy in working condition took office in England in June of 1895 . . . 
 
In this now classic work, Pulitzer prize-winning historian Barbara Tuchman explores the quarter century leading up to the First World War, from the dying embers of the British aristocracy to the fitful eruptions of the anarchist movement. She provides a compelling portrait of the key figures and conflicting ideologies of this time, giving an intimate view of an epoch that was soon to be swept away by the tide of history. 
 
'Her intention is to make the age alive for us, and in that she abundantly succeeds' Daily Telegraph 
 
'Tuchman has a gift of recreating a period and a mood by an inspired selection of detail and sheer narrative sweep. A volcano of a book' Evening Standard 
 
'Impeccable scholarship and literary polish. Impossible to read without pleasure and admiration' New York Times 
 
Barbara Tuchman achieved prominence as a historian with The Zimmerman Telegram and international fame with the Pulitzer-Prize winning The Guns of August. She is also the author of Stilwell and the American Experience in China (also awarded the Pulitzer Prize), A Distant Mirror and The March of Folly. She died in 1989. The Guns of August and The Zimmerman Telegram are published by Penguin.

Tuchman has a gift of recreating a period and a mood by an inspired selection of detail and sheer narrative sweep. A volcano of a book

Impeccable scholarship and literary polish. Impossible to read without pleasure and admiration

Tuchman tells her story with cool wit and warm understanding

The last government in the Western world to possess all the attributes of aristocracy in working condition took office in England in June of 1895 . . . 
 
In this now classic work, Pulitzer prize-winning historian Barbara Tuchman explores the quarter century leading up to the First World War, from the dying embers of the British aristocracy to the fitful eruptions of the anarchist movement. She provides a compelling portrait of the key figures and conflicting ideologies of this time, giving an intimate view of an epoch that was soon to be swept away by the tide of history.

Barbara Tuchman

A beautiful, extraordinary book . . . Tuchman at the top of her powers . . . She has done nothing finer

Wise, witty, and wonderful . . . a great book, in a great historical tradition

Beautifully written, careful and thorough in its scholarship . . . What Ms. Tuchman does superbly is to tell how it was. . . . No one has ever done this better

The Calamitous 14th Century

The fourteenth century was a time of fabled crusades and chivalry, glittering cathedrals and grand castles. It was also a time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world of chaos and the plague. 
 
Here, Barbara Tuchman masterfully reveals the two contradictory images of the age, examining the great rhythms of history and the grain and texture of domestic life as it was lived: what childhood was like; what marriage meant; how money, taxes and war dominated the lives of serf, noble and clergy alike. 
 
Granting her subjects their loyalties, treacheries and guilty passions, Tuchman recreates the lives of proud cardinals, university scholars, grocers and clerks, saints and mystics, lawyers and mercenaries, and, above all, knights. The result is an astonishing reflection of medieval Europe, a historical tour de force.

Barbara Tuchman

Praise for A Distant Mirror

A beautiful, extraordinary book . . . Tuchman at the top of her powers . . . She has done nothing finer

Wise, witty, and wonderful . . . a great book, in a great historical tradition

Beautifully written, careful and thorough in its scholarship . . . What Ms. Tuchman does superbly is to tell how it was. . . . No one has ever done this better

A beautiful, extraordinary book . . . Tuchman at the top of her powers . . . She has done nothing finer

Wise, witty, and wonderful . . . a great book, in a great historical tradition

Beautifully written, careful and thorough in its scholarship . . . What Ms. Tuchman does superbly is to tell how it was. . . . No one has ever done this better

A beautiful, extraordinary book . . . Tuchman at the top of her powers . . . She has done nothing finer

Wise, witty, and wonderful . . . a great book, in a great historical tradition

Beautifully written, careful and thorough in its scholarship . . . What Ms. Tuchman does superbly is to tell how it was. . . . No one has ever done this better

Books by Barbara Tuchman

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