Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization by Nicholson Baker Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization
Book Review: Absurd and inaccurate
Summary: 1 Stars
Baker states that the result of WWII could not have been worse than it was. Oh no? Had the Nazis not been defeated in Europe, then the whole of Europe and Britain would have been controlled by a horrific fascist regime which shut down intellectual inquiry and freedom of expression, burned books, and killed anyone who disagreed with it. With all of Europe and much of Africa contolled by a powerful fascist regime, Russia controlled by the equally blood-thirsty Stalin, and Asia dominated by a fascist power base in Japan - would there have been any chance of survival of democracy? Would the US have been able to hold out if all these powers had been mounted against us? (there were Nazi U Boats off the shores of the US before we entered the war in '41) Baker never bothers to consider this. He ignores the horrible suffering of the people in countries Hitler invaded and controlled. His premise is that it was harder on the Jews because we went to war. But Baker writes as though the Jews were the only ones to suffer at the hands of the Nazis in Europe. He has jumped into his premise without understanding the true state of the war and the complete history. He delved into a few facts to make his point and ignores blatantly obvious evidence which doesn't fit his theories. Baker talks about the night bombings of Germany as though the Brits actually had any other choice strategically and as though the incredibly risky raids by the RAF were just blood thirsty vindictiveness on the part of Churchill. He doesn't seem to have a clue what Britain was facing in 1941. Baker apparently thinks that the Battle of Britain could have been avoided if the British had just let Hitler march through one European country after another and then they would have politely stopped at the Channel - or the eastern Atlantic. Hitler's own words disprove such an idea. Comparisons with Iraq are idiotic - Saddam was not planning and was not capable of the kind of continental aggression which was accomplished by the Nazis and their allies. This book is a load of bunk - Baker should stick to fiction.Book Review: For people willing to be "confused" by the facts
Summary: 5 Stars
"The facts ma"am, just the facts."
Sgt Joe Friday, Dragnet,
HUMAN SMOKE is just that, the facts that led to WW11. This includes many uncomfortable but absolutely true facts, such as the participation of the U.S. and Britain in an arms race and arms sales to Germany and Japan, the decision to engage in unrestricted bombing of civilians and cities by Churchill, with the enthusiastic support and assistance of Roosevelt, the sucessful plan by Roosevelt to force the Japanese to attack the U.S. fleet at Pear Harbor, with the enthusiastic support and assistance of Churchill, the complete and utter indifference of both Roosevelt and Churchill (both of whom were outspoken anti-semites) to the plight of Jews in occupied Europe, and of Poland, which our involvement in WW11 ended up assuring the destruction of.
For some reason, even people who should know better have largely accepted the notion that the Second World War, the greatest war in human history, and the first nuclear war, was some sort of "surprise" that began in 1939 when a lone, anti-semetic, madman decided to conquer the world begining with Poland, utilizing a strategy that he had published in a best selling book some years earlier.
Human Smoke will dispel that notion.
Begining with Thomas Flemming's, brilliant THE NEW DEALERS WAR, we seem to be finally witnessing the challenging of the official version of the historical events that formed the basis of the second world war.
And whether or not you come to the same conclusions, this book is a true page turner. I promise you, if you start this book,you will not be able to easily put it down.
Book Review: The More Things Change...
Summary: 4 Stars
"Jihad was being preached with frenzied fervour...[The government has] decided that the rebellion must be quelled effectively...". Surely we are in present-day America, propagandized by neocon journalists that an attack on U.S. soil by Iraqi insurgents is imminent.
Well, it is Iraq, but written by the commander of British forces, August 1920, urging then-secretary of state for war Winston Churchill to send more troops and planes.
This is but one of the many shocks of recognition one will find in the masterful new work by Nicholson Baker. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Baker has accomplished one of the essential roles of the true historian by distilling mountains of official and unofficial archival paperwork into an episodic, highly readable format for the common reader. He allows the main "players" in the run-up to and prosecution of WWII to speak for themselves through their myriad telegrams, letters, speeches, table talk, etc., to devastating cumulative effect. The reader - with the added perspective of 60+ years - can thus see in stark terms how the political and military classes of every generation escalate crises through chronic brinksmanship into disasters of worldwide proportion and suffering.
I wanted to capture impressions of Human Smoke before I had read any reviews (tantamount to "spoilers" for the veteran moviegoer) so I dove in without knowing anything about the book or the author's previous work other than it's competing with Patrick Buchanan's new book as the WWII reassessment of the year (possibly the decade). The first impressions hit like a freight train: the masses desire peace and prosperity, while the politicians always crave war and debt; if a nation maintains a standing army and weapons industry on the excuse that it is for "defense" and "deterrent" purposes only, eventually that nation will march off to war on any pretext it can invent (usually with the eager connivance of other similarly situated polities); the popular press always becomes the government's propaganda arm which must convince the masses that conscription and war are the only answer; people who covet political office generally are the very personality types that shouldn't have it.
Baker also makes very effective use of dates in the lockstep march to WWII. Events progress in ruthlessly chronological fashion as we see in "real time" how, first, competing voices are raised, then shouted, then screamed, while government bodies harden their stances until, as Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's secretary John Colville writes, "the moral scruples of the [government] have been overcome" and the bombs start falling.
Many fresh, even politically incorrect, perspectives emerge from Human Smoke, stories rarely (if ever) treated in mainstream publications or known to the average reader: the monumental effort of Quaker pacifists to avert war by feeding, housing refugees and negotiating with world leaders from Roosevelt to Hitler; Gandhi's similarly doomed efforts at diplomacy; the many bombing raids by England on Germany that preceded (aggravated?) the oft-told London Blitzkrieg we Westerners have been weaned on since kindergarten; the alacrity with which governments seize on any technology imaginable to foment discord, death and destruction (leaflets, chemicals, disinformation, explosives and...fleas!). And, above all, how politicians repeat the same mistakes and failed policies of the past and expect a different outcome this time.
Baker has woven a rich and compelling portrait of a world gone mad once, twice...three times? Let us hope not.
Book Review: Childish simple-mindedness
Summary: 1 Stars
I just saw an interview with Mr. Baker on BookTV. He is as naive in his world-view on TV as he is in this "history" of WWII. I beg anyone who is interested in reading this book to provide themselves with some context before reading this tome. Mr. Baker has culled all sorts of quotes in order to advance the ridiculous thesis that WWII was unnecessary, that Churchill and FDR were war-mongering criminals, etc. Just to take one case in particular, Baker notes that Churchill did not warn the people of Coventry of an impending Nazi bombing raid. Churchill knew of the raid, of course, because the Allies had broken the German military code. But had the Germans KNOWN the Allies had broken the code, that huge advantage would have been lost. Churchill's failure to act, according to Baker, is evidence of his Hitlerian tendencies. No, no, no: Churchill, the leader of his nation, had to act for the greater good. Does any sane person believe such a decision did not rip at Churchill's soul? But through such decisions was the war won and the carnage carried on by the Nazis and Japanese finally ended. Mr. Baker seems blithely unaware that the Nazis and the Japanese were killing Poles and Chinese and Jews and whoever else they wanted to long before Britain and France entered the war.
This book is simply shocking in its arrogance, its foolishness, its insipidity. It's as if Hitler and Tojo had survived until today and had been given their chance to write a defense of their actions "in their own words." This book is an insult to any thinking, reasonable person.
Book Review: The Bad War
Summary: 1 Stars
World War II was bad. Very bad. The worst. Baker is hung up on this idea, so much so that among other things he's blind to the difference between vicious aggression and desperate defense.
Roosevelt was something of an antisemite, but far less so than, for example, Henry Ford and Rupert Brooke. And that guy Hitler. Stalin was a mass murderer, but his country was attacked by its erstwhile "ally," that guy Hitler. Churchill was a bully, but Hitler and the Japanese militarists, including the Emperor who refused to rein them in by merely shaking his head, considerably outclassed him in that regard. More innocent people were killed by the Japanese at Nanjing than by the American atom bombs, which, whatever their moral implications, were designed to *end* the war that Tokyo began. "Human Smoke" wants you to ignore these facts and many, many others. Why is not clear. Baker's method is that of the late Robert Ripley of Believe It or Not!!, just as entertaining and just as shallow.
Another note: as has been proved again and again in World War II and later, bombing rail lines is rarely cost effective. With plenty of slave labor available, Germany would have rebuilt those lines to Auschwitz in no time. Pilots and planes undoubtedly would have been lost on every return mission.
World War II was not the "end of human civilization." It was a sample. It showed that bad dudes can now end civilization for real if they really want to.