From Booklist
Taking his swing at the origins of World War II, conservative pundit Buchanan incorporates the subject into his warnings, expressed in several populistjeremiads (State of Emergency, 2006), of the decline of the West. Certainly World War I, with which Buchanan begins, was a catastrophe for Western civilization whose ramifications continue tobe felt. Buchanans interpretation generally holdsthat British and American participation in both WWI and WWII was avoidableif British leaders had recognized that Germany was no threat to the vital interests of the British Empire. Banking his thesis on such supposed benevolence from Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler, Buchanan criticizes various British policies of the 1920s and 1930s (who doesnt?), and argues collaterally with Hitlers statements disclaiming fundamental conflicts with Britain. The weakness in Buchanans line of thinking, of course, is that by 1939, Hitlers internationalword was worthless; yet Buchanan hinges his case on what might have happened had Britain let Hitler go after Poland in 1939 as it had Czechoslovakia. Speculating abetter future had the West permitted Nazi Germany a free hand in Eastern Europe,Buchanan cites the historical costs of Britain and France having at last drawn the lineagainst aggression. Convinced? Controversial as is his wont, Buchanan reminds his large readership that the immediate ignition of WWII can still be disputed. --Gilbert Taylor
Product Description
Were World Wars I and IIwhich can now be seen as a thirty-year paroxysm of slaughter and destructioninevitable? Were they necessary wars? Were the bloodiest and most devastating conflicts ever suffered by mankind fated by forces beyond mens control? Or were they products of calamitous failures of judgment? In this monumental and provocative history, Patrick Buchanan makes the case that, if not for the blunders of British statesmenWinston Churchill first among themthe horrors of two world wars and the Holocaust might have been avoided and the British Empire might never have collapsed into ruins. Half a century of murderous oppression of scores of millions under the iron boot of Communist tyranny might never have happened, and Europes central role in world affairs might have been sustained for many generations.
Among the British and Churchillian blunders were:
The secret decision of a tiny cabal in the inner Cabinet in 1906 to take Britain straight to war against Germany, should she invade France
The vengeful Treaty of Versailles that muti- lated Germany, leaving her bitter, betrayed, and receptive to the appeal of Adolf Hitler
Britains capitulation, at Churchills urging, to American pressure to sever the Anglo- Japanese alliance, insulting and isolating Japan, pushing her onto the path of militarism and conquest
The 1935 sanctions that drove Italy straight into the Axis with Hitler
The greatest blunder in British history: the unsolicited war guarantee to Poland of March 1939that guaranteed the Second World War
Churchills astonishing blindness to Stalins true ambitions.
Certain to create controversy and spirited argument,_ Churchill, Hitler, and The Unnecessary War_ is a grand and bold insight into the historic failures of judgment that ended centuries of European rule and guaranteed a future no one who lived in that vanished world could ever have envisioned.
From the Hardcover edition.
Genre : History.war Quality : 5 Formats : EPUB, MOBI