Combat
Brigadier General
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2005
- Messages
- 10,518
Sounds like another interesting book as reviewed in the Washington Post today:
This exceptionally lucid, concise and authoritative book (which publishes at the end of September) tells the story of "the extraordinary ten days of drama that separated the conclusion of the German-Soviet [non-aggression] pact early in the morning of 24 August [1939] and the late afternoon of 3 September when France joined Britain in declaring war on Germany." Richard Overy continues:
"The final outbreak of war was sealed by decisions taken under the immense strain of knowing that Europe risked being plunged once again into a conflict that many feared would mean the eclipse of European civilization. In the end, resolving the crisis fell to the lot of a handful of men compelled, whether they liked it or not, to act out a drama that involved the lives of millions of ordinary Europeans."
Overy, professor of history at the University of Exeter in England and author, co-author or editor of more than two dozen books dealing in various ways with World War II, has long argued that the root causes of the war were deeper and more complex than is commonly acknowledged. Here, however, he is less concerned with underlying causes than with the brutal pressures that came to bear on the leaders of the future antagonists as they maneuvered to protect their own interests on the one hand and to stave off continent-wide warfare on the other. "The outbreak of war," he writes, "now seems a natural consequence of the international crisis provoked principally by Hitler's Germany. What follows is intended to show that nothing in history is inevitable."
This exceptionally lucid, concise and authoritative book (which publishes at the end of September) tells the story of "the extraordinary ten days of drama that separated the conclusion of the German-Soviet [non-aggression] pact early in the morning of 24 August [1939] and the late afternoon of 3 September when France joined Britain in declaring war on Germany." Richard Overy continues:
"The final outbreak of war was sealed by decisions taken under the immense strain of knowing that Europe risked being plunged once again into a conflict that many feared would mean the eclipse of European civilization. In the end, resolving the crisis fell to the lot of a handful of men compelled, whether they liked it or not, to act out a drama that involved the lives of millions of ordinary Europeans."
Overy, professor of history at the University of Exeter in England and author, co-author or editor of more than two dozen books dealing in various ways with World War II, has long argued that the root causes of the war were deeper and more complex than is commonly acknowledged. Here, however, he is less concerned with underlying causes than with the brutal pressures that came to bear on the leaders of the future antagonists as they maneuvered to protect their own interests on the one hand and to stave off continent-wide warfare on the other. "The outbreak of war," he writes, "now seems a natural consequence of the international crisis provoked principally by Hitler's Germany. What follows is intended to show that nothing in history is inevitable."