Research Paper on:
The March of Folly by Barbara Tuchman

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
one of the best American historians, wrote in her book The March of Folly (1984) that "a phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by  governments of policies contrary to their own interests" . According to her, "self-interest is whatever conduces to the welfare or advantage of the body being governed; folly is a policy  that in these terms is counter-productive". Tuchman considered folly to be the most dangerous act of misgovernment and saw it as a "self-destructive act carried out despite the availability of  a recognized and feasible alternative". Relevance of history What is the place of popular history in todays society? Is it merely a form of entertainment for a reading public who  enjoy a vivid and meticulously accurate description of Picketts Charge or of Victorias blossoming love for Albert? Is it a harmless supplement to the visual recreation of the past, from  the fiction of Trollope or of Henry James, in recent television and film productions? Or is there some danger to be apprehended if, as seems the case, the good majority  of reasonably well-educated Americans draw their understanding of the past, recent as well as distant, from what is, after all, a sophisticated entertainment medium? How does popular history influence todays  politics, if at all? (Happ ppg). Folly Tuchman indicated in her book that one of the criteria for the misgovernment to be classified as folly is the necessity of the  policy in question "to be that of a group, not an individual ruler, and it should persist beyond any one political lifetime." Woodenheadedness A certain type of thinking according to  Tuchman, is a clear exercise in perversion, a simple wooden-headedness,that she describes in the following way:"Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in