Barbara Tuchman was born Barbara Wertheim in New York on Juanuary 30, 1912. Her Father was a wealthy banker and Publisher of the Nation Magazine, her mother was the daughter of Henry Morgenthau, who was US Ambassador to Turkey. Tuchman went to Walden High School in Manhattan and then to Radicliff. She traveled the world and wrote for the Nation until her father sold it. In 1940 she married and over the next few years had three daughters. During World War II she worked for the Office of War Information. In 1956 she published Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour.

Barbara Tuchman was acclaimed for her prize-winning books on war. From The Guns of August (1962) to Stillwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-1945 (1971) -- both winners of the Pulitzer Prize -- to A Distant Mirror (1978) and The First Salute (1988), Tuchman managed to produce books that appealed to both academics and the public. Though there was sometimes quibbling about her accuracy on minor points, all agreed that Tuchman possessed a unique ability to bring history to life and make it accessible to all.

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