書名：The Guns of August八月炮火

作者：Barbara W. Tuchman巴巴拉·W.塔奇曼
齣版社名稱：Presidio Press
齣版時間：2004
語種：英文
ISBN：9780345476098
商品尺寸：10.9 x 2.8 x 17.8 cm
包裝：簡裝
頁數：640
The Guns of August《八月炮火》用生動、直接的語言，暴露人類愚蠢卻真實的細節描寫，詳細描畫第1次世界大戰首月戰局與故事進程的清晰思路，讓第1次世界大戰的故事引人入勝。

第1次世界大戰爆發的狂熱內幕！
荒謬而真實，你所知道的一戰，從未如此細入骨髓！
普利策奬經典曆史著作！
一戰首月，行動者粉墨登場，以主觀之意操縱億萬生靈。大廈將傾，誰是潰堤之蟻？
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time
The Proud Tower, the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Guns of August, and The Zimmerman Telegram comprise Barbara W. Tuchman's classic histories of the First World War era
In this landmark, Pulitzer Prize-winning account, renowned historian Barbara W. Tuchman re-creates the first month of World War I: thirty days in the summer of 1914 that determined the course of the conflict, the century, and ultimately our present world. Beginning with the funeral of Edward VII, Tuchman traces each step that led to the inevitable clash. And inevitable it was, with all sides plotting their war for a generation. Dizzyingly comprehensive and spectacularly portrayed with her famous talent for evoking the characters of the war's key players, Tuchman's magnum opus is a classic for the ages.

Praise for The Guns of August
“A brilliant piece of military history which proves up to the hilt the force of Winston Churchill's statement that the first month of World War I was 'a drama never surpassed.'”  — Newsweek
“More dramatic than fiction . . . a magnificent narrative—beautifully organized, elegantly phrased, skillfully paced and sustained.”—Chicago Tribune

“A fine demonstration that with sufficient art rather specialized history can be raised to the level of literature.”—The New York Times

“[The Guns of August] has a vitality that transcends its narrative virtues, which are considerable, and its feel for characterizations, which is excellent.”—TheWallStreetJournal
八月炮火燒遍

四載生靈塗炭
那個八月，霞飛，毛奇，剋盧剋……粉墨登場 那個八月，按小時計，按分鍾計
那個八月，人類曆史上第1次世界大戰拉開帷幕
那個八月，人類那樣的自以為是
一些人在戰爭中崛起，操縱億萬生靈
在戰場上布局，在戰場下鬥智
如同這隻是一場遊戲
本書用生動、直接的語言，暴露人類愚蠢卻真實的細節描寫，詳細描畫第1次世界大戰首月戰局與戰事進程的清晰思路，讓第1次世界大戰的故事引人入勝，從高層的每一步設計，到士兵真實感受，從各國戰略，到軍官個人對戰爭的影響，絲毫不漏，娓娓道來，還原一個真實而有血肉的八月。
這些深諳政治遊戲的上位者，用他們擅長的政治手段與軍事謀略，一步步精心布置，驅使無數並不甘心情願的軍人百姓參與其中。這是一次自掘墳墓的狂熱政治遊戲。
一場應該可以避免、也沒有一方真正希望發生、而且絕大多數人都認為不可能會發生的全麵性戰爭拉開帷幕

從1956年到1988年，她共齣版瞭10部作品：
《聖經與劍》（Bible and Sword, 1956）、《齊默爾曼電報》（TheZimmermann Telegram, 1958）、《八月炮火》（TheGuns of August, 1962）、《驕傲的城堡》（The Proud Tower, 1966）、《史迪威與美國在中國的經驗》（Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1971）、《來自中國的函件》（Notes from China, 1972）、《遙遠的鏡子》（A DistantMirror, 1978）、《實踐曆史》（Practicing History, 1981）、《“荒唐”進行麯》（The March of Folly, 1984）、《第1次敬禮》（The First Salute, 1988）。
Barbara W. Tuchman (1912–1989) achieved prominence as a historian with The Zimmermann Telegram and international fame with The Guns of August—a huge bestseller and winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Her other works include Bible and Sword, The Proud Tower, Stilwell and the American Experience in China(for which Tuchman was awarded a second Pulitzer Prize), Notes from China, A Distant Mirror, Practicing History, The March of Folly, and The First Salute.

In the center of the front row rode the new king. George V, flanked on his left by the Duke of Connaught. The late king’s only surviving brother, and on his right by a personage to whom, acknowledged The Times, “belongs the first place among all the foreign mourners.” who “even when relations are most strained has never lost his popularity amongst us”— William II, the German Emperor. Mounted on a gray horse, wearing the scarlet uniform of a British Field Marshal, carrying the baton of that rank, the Kaiser had composed his features behind the famous upturned mustache in an expression grave even to severity.” Of the several emotions churning his susceptible breast, some hints exist in his letters. “I am proud to call this place my home and to be a member of this royal family.’ he wrote home after spending the night in Windsor Castle in the former apartments of his mother. Sentiment and nostalgia induced by these melancholy occasions with his English relatives jostled with pride in his supremacy among the assembled potentates and with a fierce relish in the disappearance of his uncle from the European scene. He had come to bury Edward his bane: Edward the arch plotter, as William conceived it of Germany’s encirclement: Edward his mother’s brother whom he could neither bully nor impress, whose fat figure cast a shadow between Germany and the sun. “He is Satan. You cannot imagine what a Satan he is!”
This verdict, announced by the Kaiser before a dinner of three hundred guests in Berlin in 1907, was occasioned by one of Edward’s continental tours undertaken with clearly diabolical designs at encirclement. He had spent a provocative week in Paris, visited for no good reason the King of Spain (who had just married his niece), and finished with a visit to the King of Italy with obvious intent to seduce him from his Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria. The Kaiser, possessor of the least inhibited tongue in Europe, had worked himself into a frenzy ending in another of those comments that had periodically over the past twenty years of his reign shattered the nerves of diplomats.