Barbara Wertheim Tuchman was an American historian, journalist and author. She won the Pulitzer Prize twice, for The Guns of August (1962), a best-selling history of the prelude to and the first month of World War I, and Stilwell and the American Experience in China (1971), a biography of General Joseph Stilwell.

The Guns of August is a 1962 book centered on the first month of World War I written by Barbara W. Tuchman. After introductory chapters, Tuchman describes in great detail the opening events of the conflict. The book's focus then becomes a military history of the contestants, chiefly the great powers.