During my reading of "Bible and Sword" I developed the impression that Barbara Tuchman wasn't objective about its subject matter. To be fair, she admits this in the foreword. However, I was surprised at the extent of her bias regarding one topic. This was evident when she made observations about the apparent lack of success Christians experienced in sharing their faith with Jews over a nineteen hundred year period. I've read a collection of books which draws a different conclusion. The collection is called "A History of Christianity" and was written by Kenneth Latourette. Latourette's research indicates that Christians experienced a modicum of success in witnessing to Jews during this period, excluding the Inquisition. Tuchman indicates in "Bible and Sword" that Christians had virtually no success. In fact, she states she cannot find any evidence of Jews converting to Christianity beyond a small number. This defies common sense. Given human nature there will always be people who voluntarily renounce their religion for another; Jews for Christianity, Catholics for Protestantism, Protestants for Judaism, etc.
Further, Tuchman displays thinly veiled contempt toward Christians who share their faith with Jews. Her tone is smug and is based in her belief that Judaism is a superior religion that no intelligent Jew would forswear for an inferior belief system, i.e. in her words, Christianity. She exposes her contempt at several points in the book. She gives no basis for her claim that Judaism is superior to Christianity. You as the reader are just required to accept her view as fact. My opinion is that once she ventured down this path she obligated herself to making her case. Actually, she could easily have told her account of history without offering her opinion on this topic. It didn't add anything to my understanding of the salient issues.
On these occasions she diverges from rational, objective analysis to an emotional defense of her religion. She is no longer an historian, but an apologist. This may be the outgrowth of a sense of persecution, which is understandable, but not fitting for a historian.
Her unrestrained attempt to coerce you into drawing a conclusion about an irrelevant issue, without providing adequate substantiation for her claims made me question her veracity on other topics she covered in subsequent books. Prior to reading "Bible and Sword" I had read "A Distant Mirror", "The March of Folly", "The Guns of August", and "Stilwell and the American Experience in China."
I qualify my criticism by noting that "Bible and Sword" was one of Barbara's Tuchman's earliest attempts at writing history, and that her style improved in succeeding works. However, better style should not imply more thorough research or honest exposition.
Let the reader beware: read more than one person's account of history before drawing any conclusions. Each historical account I've read (including Latourette's books) contains analyses that are influenced by the author's preconceptions.
