DaveSchmidt said:

terp said:

I highly recommend Human Smoke by Nicholas Baker.

His name is Nicholson Baker. He’s a famous writer. Ask any humanities major.

From the Amazon site:

Human Smoke delivers a closely textured, deeply moving indictment of the treasured myths that have romanticized much of the 1930s and '40s. Incorporating meticulous research and well-documented sources—including newspaper and magazine articles, radio speeches, memoirs, and diaries—the book juxtaposes hundreds of interrelated moments of decision, brutality, suffering, and mercy. Vivid glimpses of political leaders and their dissenters illuminate and examine the gradual, horrifying advance toward overt global war and Holocaust.

I'm not too encumbered by treasured myths, but if this book is available (it is) in the library, I will give it a try.

I'm currently rereading The Guns of August.  Tuchman never gets old.

tjohn said:

DaveSchmidt said:

terp said:

I highly recommend Human Smoke by Nicholas Baker.

His name is Nicholson Baker. He’s a famous writer. Ask any humanities major.

From the Amazon site:

Human Smoke delivers a closely textured, deeply moving indictment of the treasured myths that have romanticized much of the 1930s and '40s. Incorporating meticulous research and well-documented sources—including newspaper and magazine articles, radio speeches, memoirs, and diaries—the book juxtaposes hundreds of interrelated moments of decision, brutality, suffering, and mercy. Vivid glimpses of political leaders and their dissenters illuminate and examine the gradual, horrifying advance toward overt global war and Holocaust.

I'm not too encumbered by treasured myths, but if this book is available (it is) in the library, I will give it a try.

I'm currently rereading The Guns of August.  Tuchman never gets old.

On Terp's recommendation, I did read Human Smoke.  It's worth a read if you are at all interested in history.  Baker provided a chronologically order sequence of anecdotes and quotes from various people from 1914 through 1941.  He seems to believe that Britain and the United States should have tried to negotiate with Hitler and Japan.

Nothing in the book surprised me although it is always disappointing to be reminded of how our country behaved towards desperate refugees in the years leading up to our entry into the Second World War.

Baker brings us no closer to answering the question of how to respond non-militarily to those who would upend the status quo by force - Wilhelmine Germany, Nazi Germany, Fascist Japan, Putin, North Korea - the list is endless.

In the case of Hitler, France and Britain let him forcibly merge with Austria, remilitarize the Rhineland and steal territory from Czechoslovakia.  That seems pretty accommodating to me and still Hitler wanted more.

tjohn said:

I'm currently rereading The Guns of August. Tuchman never gets old.

I started it years ago after buying this dogeared copy at a Morrow sale, I think. I’m making a more committed go of it now (after finishing a gift book from a friend about American reporters in WWI and seeing your prod) but just ordered a new copy from Words. The tiny type on yellowed pages is killing me.

R.F.K. Jr. Says Doctors Found a Dead Worm in His Brain