BOOKS The March of Folly/From Troy to Vietnam, by Barbara W. Tuchman (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1984, xiv + 447pp, illus, $18.95). Barbara Tuchman again shows us that the study of history may make us wiser but it will not necessarily make us happier. (Except that we are always the happier for reading a good book, of which Mrs. Tuchman has now given us several.) Her theme here is "pursuit of policy contrary to self-interest." She defines selfinterest as "whatever conduces to the welfare or advantage of the body being governed; folly is a policy that in these terms is counter-productive." Four hundred pages later, she refines the definition: "If pursuing disadvantage after the disadvantage has become obvious is irrational, then rejection of reason is the prime characteristic of folly." In Mrs. Tuchman's book, "folly " is strictly delimited to exclude the ordinary errors, stupidities, oppressions, tyrannies, o'er-vaulting ambitions, and incompetences common to misgovernment. "Folly" must, for discussion here, "have been perceived as counter-productive in its own time, not merely by hindsight"; there must have been a feasible alternative course; and the policy must have been persistently pursued by a group not just an individual. From history's satchelful of woodenheadedness, the author selects three for detailed study, following a brief " prototype," the Trojan horse affair, when the Trojans ignored repeated warnings and neglected to beware sufficiently Greeks bearing gifts. (Those who use "Cassandra" today as a perjorative forget that Cassandra was, after all, right.) The titles of the main sections of the book encapsulate their sad stories: "The Renaissance Popes provoke the Protestant Secession ," " The British lose America," and ''America betrays herself in Vietnam." This is popular narrative history at its best. It is also a cautionary tale for reflecting on current events. Persistence in error is not a thing of the past. Sea history is not a factor in this book, but it is worth noting in this journal that the epilogue is titled ''A Lantern on the Stem." The phrase is from Coleridge: "If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind us." CHARLES G. BOLTE
Mr. Bolte is editor of The American Oxonian, and was the first national chairman of the American Ji?terans Committee. SEA HISTORY, FALL 1984
GIVE ME MEN TO MATCH MY SCHOONERS! Down to the Sea: The Fishing Schooners of Gloucester, by Joseph E . Garland (David R. Godine, Boston , 1983 , 224 pp. 160 photos , drawings , $27.50). This handsomely produced book does full justice to the smashing collection of photographs ofthe Gloucester schooners at work offshore that that great Gloucesterman Joe Garland brings us-with unique authority and inimitable grace. We searched for a reviewer adequate to the work, and found Sterling Hayden, himselfbrought up in the Gloucester.fisheries, and respected there. Here is some of what he says in his introduction to this classic: Gloucester gave the world a type of sailing vessel the like of which will never be seen again. She sent down to the eternal sea those schooners that took her name, that in a way were almost the mirror image of that great brawling young giant of a nation known as the USA. No chauvinism here. The ships speak for themselves . Take a quick squint at the photographs embedded in this book and you'll begin to comprehend , I trust, what it is I'm driving toward . From roughly 1870 to 1930 this town, along with her handmaiden Essex , brought to life a wondrous swarm of two-masted , two-fisted , sweet-sheered vessels calculated to do battle with that malevolent wilderness of waters known as the North Atlantic Ocean. Their everyday task was to catch fish, but their niche in maritime history is due in no small part to their incomparable ability to battle to windward in the teeth ofliving gales. To say nothing of their capacity to heave to and ride out some of. the most daunting weather and infuriate conditions to be found rampaging around on the surface of the Seven Seas . They were also beautiful. Now we're getting down to it. Working craft the world around have usually had sea-keeping qualities . But beauty? Soaring, mindboggling beauty? Now that is something
else. Even Gloucester herself, never given to flights of fancy, had a phrase for her pelagic progeny: able handsome ladies. Able was for going to windward, for driving, slashing, slamming uphill full in the face of those infamous winter northwesters, iced up sometimes halfway to the hounds, with their men hard-pressed to endure twenty minute watches, with pure hell breaking loose aloft and the devil himself dancing ajig downwind, his arms widespread in a welcoming arc for those too weary or weak to survive. Handsome to Gloucester meant the set of the spars, the flawless proportions, the balance of rig and gear, the planes and curves ofhandsewn cotton canvas. Small wonder that the mere mention of Gloucesterman was enough to command sharp respect and even wonder wherever seafaring men congregated, causing many to indulge in an interlude, however brief, of unabashed reflection.
* * * * * Maybe there are " riches " in this convoluted world the arbiters of the Fortune Five Hundred way of life don 't know damn-all about. One thing for sure: the fishermen enshrined in these pages knew what it was to bust their guts and haul their hearts out ... then maybe hang to the vessel's wheel and ease her as she roared toward home and mother with her rail dragging the water, the salt spray rattling like machine-gun fire off whatever canvas might be drawing her back up under the lee of the land. And then one more bitter passage winding down, leaving the Dayvil dangling on his own particular ropes, the stiffs in the fo 'c' sle could lather up, belt back a blast of Black Rum ... and look themselves right square in the eye. Joe Garland I salute you. You've told it like it was! STERLING HAYDEN
Copyright 1983
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