Richard OveryResenhas
Autor(a) de Why the Allies Won
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The Morbid Age de Richard Overy
With over 600 full-colour maps and charts on a wide range of historical subjects and representing the work of a team of world-class historians, this new edition continues a tradition of more than thirty years of excellence, style, authority and cutting-edge design.
With fully up-to-date text, including new material on the Middle East, China and Russia, this book, edited by leading modern historian Professor Richard Overy, is more compelling than ever.
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This is one of the best--maybe The best--books on world history ever. The maps with same-page descriptions show the early and later migrations of peoples and the spread of religions and cultures with great clarity. No internet search could encompass this breadth and continuity of research through centuries, findable simply by turning the pages.
I have bought copies for all of our grandchildren, even the littlest ones. I trust that some day they will be glad to have this resource (even if right now they think that it is a weird gift.)
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Marty M
5.0 out of 5 stars Great maps. One map is worth 1
Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2017
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Very helpful when making serious attempt to study/learn world history. Great maps. One map is worth 1,000 words. Book in very good condition. Have it on my coffee table when not using it. Friends often pick it up to look at maps.
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Chen Yuanxi
5.0 out of 5 stars A brand new book from warehouse won't be any better. Will come back for more books
Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2017
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Unbelievable condition. A brand new book from warehouse won't be any better. Will come back for more books.
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James Judge
4.0 out of 5 stars This is not the current edition.
Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2019
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This book (copyright 1999 is 90% identical to the current edition, but it lacks about 50 pages of more current changes in the world.
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M. Powell
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2016
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Great atlas
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marianne christesen
3.0 out of 5 stars Three Stars
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2015
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The book was not guite in the state that I expected
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BB
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 8, 2023
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Wow what an amazing book!
Absolutely delighted.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Jim
Reviewed in Canada on September 2, 2019
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Very good product and service.
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bart1990
4.0 out of 5 stars One page is damaged
Reviewed in Germany on March 15, 2020
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The content is awesome. And the price is pretty good for a big book like this.
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Robert Hoyle
5.0 out of 5 stars My updated Times Atlas of World History from Amazon
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 22, 2012
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I have owned for many years the Times Atlas and theTimes Atlas of World History 1978 edition
I have just upgraded to the Times History of the World -Revised edition.
I own approximately 2000 history books -and have read them! The new( to me) Atlas/History I find
excellent. I use it as the first reference before going into greater detail and , to my surprise,
I keep discovering that there is often sufficient information in this one volume.
My only-trivial- criticism is regarding some of the WW1 and WW2 coverage and I suspect that is due
to my other 1000 books on the subject.
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Caroline
5.0 out of 5 stars second hand book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 30, 2013
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I am delighted with this product which I bought from my mum to my husband. I was a little worried buying second hand but new was just too much cost and it is brilliant really excellent condition and he loves it. Arrived in plenty of time before due date and well packaged and protected. Very very pleased with this book and service thanks
Overy pursues the idea in the first three chapters. This is an approximately 200 pages long, condensed history of the war as seen from this "imperial" perspective. Regrettably, as a brief history of the war, this is useful but not very good. Frankly, by page 373 you may feel a bit disappointed.
Fortunately this is followed by seven chapters that are longish stand-alone essays, which highlight various aspects of WW2 that have not been much written about previously. These essays are very good. Several of them make for uncomfortable reading, as Overy explores in detail subjects such as the war crimes committed by soldiers, partisans and resistance fighters; the mental health of soldiers; or sexual violence. Stories that later generations often chose to cover with selective forgetfulness, grim stories that do not inspire much confidence in humanity. But they sadly remain entirely relevant to this day, and these are well written accusations.
There is an alternative edition with a different cover, on which the subtitle states that 1931-1945 was the last imperial war. This seems closer to Overy's thesis. His conclusion argues that the end of the war brought about the end of empire, as the hegemonies that the USA and USSR established during the Cold War were something different, and both assisted in the dismantling of the old colonial empires. This may do a disservice to the people living in these colonies, who were working towards independence well before the war. Their agency in this must be respected, even if the war accelerated the process.
"Blood and Ruins" is not a complete history of the conflict from 1931 to 1945, and I think it doesn't strive to be. It is a book that tries to fill the gaps in our collective memory, and in that it succeeds. It reads like a collection of essays squeezed into single hefty volume, but at least that makes it easier to digest.
In addition to being slaughtered by the enemy, Soviet citizens were in nearly as much danger of being killed by their own countrymen under the guidance of Stalin. His purges and policies resulted in the death of millions. Yet they rose to the challenge, at a cost that again is hard for us to even imagine; such as the seige of Leningrad, which is detailed herein.
Though the Soviet Union was ill prepared and did not have modern war equipment initially, Stalin's focus on production and the extraordinary effort required and put in by all citizens amazingly overcame that situation and they ended up producing what was needed.
Information is included that was only made available after the fall of the Soviet Union, including details of Hitler's death. All told the Soviet Union played a MAJOR role in the defeat of Germany in World War II and was arguably the key to that victory.
This book is a companion piece to a television series documentary by the same name.
Richard Overy's argument in his new book on World War Two is that the war was part of an longer struggle, between the Allied nations trying to maintain a grip on their Empires, and the Axis powers trying to grab Empire for themselves,. The instances of the latter being the 1931 Japanese occupation of Manchuria in China.,the Italian dictator Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia on 3 October 1935, and then Hitler's desire for "lebensraum" (living space) for the German people in the East pushing him to annex parts of Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939.(Even though lack of land wasn't really the problem. The problem was it was owed by the junker class https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/1330125520611840010?referrer=georgestokoe. Hitler obviously couldn't expropriate the land from this class as they were some of the supporters of the Nazi party in the first place.) However, at the time, different reasons than straight up imperial conquest were given for these military actions:
"One of the reasons for caution was the much higher visibility of imperial conflicts by the 1930s, including those in the established empires. This was thanks principally to the development of modern media - worldwide newspaper reporting, popular newsreels and radio- but also the work of the League of Nations, which, for all it's alleged timidity, gave a public platform to debate violations of national sovereignty, including very public discussion of Japan's illegitimate seizure of Manchuria and Mussolini's attack on Ethiopia. International debate forced the aggressors to justify their actions on all three cases by claiming speciously that invasion was carried out to protect their interests against failed states. ") p. 39)
One of the things the book suggests is that there was a mystical aspect to imperialism,:" These were powerful fantasies about the settlement of wild frontiers, or the prospect of an Eldorado of riches, or an exalted 'civilising mission', or the fulfillment of a manifest destiny that would reinvigorate the nation." (p. 4)
This had a racialist component. Racialism wasn't confined to Nazi Germany, or fascist Italy:
" The British statistician Karl Pearson, in a lecture in 1900 on 'National Life from the Standpoint of Science' told his audience that the nation had to be kept up to a high standard of efficiency 'chiefly by war with inferior races, and with equal races by the struggle for trade routes and for the sources of raw materials and of food supply. This is the natural history view of mankind.'.. .
In 1900,Lord Curzon, the British viceroy of India, could argue that' all the million I have to manage are less than schoolchildren '. "(p. 5)
WWII itself was seen by the warring powers as a case of do-or die, on a worldwide scale. Professor Overy quotes Dennis Wheatley, the best-selling British occult horror novelist, who was recruited in 1940 by the British military Joint Planning Staff to draft papers on the nature of a new type of twentieth - century warfare, "Total War" :
'Moral and ethical questions have no validity in Total War except in as far as their maintenance or destruction contributes towards ultimate Victory. Expediency, not morality, is the sole criterion of human conduct in Total War.'
- Dennis Wheatley, Total War, 1941
Wheatley thought that" Nations-at - War "had only two options,"Total Victory", or "Total Annihilation", and that therefore any actions that would shorten the war and bring about victory would be morally justified 'irrespective of its "legal" or "illegal" implications.') p. 597
Obviously, Wheatley wasn't the only one who thought this. The term 'total war' had actually been coined by one of the German WWI military leaders, General Erich Ludendorff, in his post-war memoirs. Ludendorff viewed modern industrialised warfare as dependent on mobilising the whole population, rather than just the current armed forces. This would have been the British view, as well. .
As Prof. Overy writes,
"Mass mobilisation was an expression of modernity...Industrialised warfare depended on a cluster of modern wespons that were easily reproducible and relatively cheap so that it was possible to sustain large forces in the field and to resupply them over years of warfare -... These elements of modernity explain why mobilisation was possible, but not why it happened. The willingness of governments to embrace almost unlimited mobilisation, and of people's to submit to it, was shaped by the emergence of modern nationalism and changing perceptions of citizenship...The Darwinian paradigm of the struggle for survival in nature was widely understood to apply with equal force to the contest between peoples, empires and nations. During both world wars, one of the driving forces in sustaining the conflict, irrational though it might now appear, was fear of national extinction and the collapse of empire. "(p. 377 - 378.)
Ludendorff had an anti-Semitic take on total war, though, in that he attributed German WWI defeat, in 1918, to Jewish agitators and defeatists on the home front undermining mobilisation.
This "stab-in-the-back" conspiracy theory was one of the things that went on to fuel Nazi Ideology .: For Hitler,, the war and the racial struggle against Jews were one and the same thing, as heard in this speech to the Reichstag on 30 January 1939 in which he said if the Jews succeeded in plunging Europe into war, as they were alleged to have done in 1914, the consequence would be the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.
Also fuelling Nazi Ideology were "the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion." This fabricated document was cited as an example of Jewish perfidy. For example, when in a radio speech to the German people on 4 September 1939 Hitler blamed the British and French declaration of war on a 'Jewish-democratic international enemy', the anti-Semitic Weltdienst journal cited the Seventh 'Protocol' on universal war, and asked, "Could the war plans of Jewry be more clearly expressed?" (p. 600)
The history of the war suggests that the British establishment were not, however, having it's strings pulled by "world Jewry." Emigration to Britain by German Jews was heavily restricted by Britain just after the anti-Semitic Kristallnacht pogrom had happened , in November 1938.
From September 1939, Jewish emigration to Britain from Germany or German-occupied Europe was stopped completely. As one Foreign Office official put it, "So far as we and France are concerned the position of the Jews in Germany is now of no practical importance." (p. 624-5)
In one case where three overladen ships from Romania arrived off the coast of Palestine with Jewish refugees from Central Europe, the British colonial authorities at first refused permission to disembark. Then they interned the refugees in camps. And then they deported them to Mauritius, where they were held behind barbed wire with armed guards, many dying of typhoid or debilitation on route, and after being beaten with sticks by colonial police after protesting at being deported. "Sir John Shuckburgh, deputy under-secretary at the Colonial Office, thought that the protests showed that 'The Jews have no sense of humour and no sense of proportion'." (p. 625) Obviously, it wouldn't have been bad as getting gassed or worked to death in the Nazi concentration camps, but still pretty bad.
WHY DID THE ALLIES WIN?
FORCE MULTIPLIERS :
ARMOUR AND AIR
German successes at the start of the war were a lot down to how they deployed tanks. The Germans would concentrate tanks, motorized infantry and artillery in fully mechanised army units, instead of spreading them out over the whole army. However, they would run into problems against Russia, supply lines getting stretched thin and tanks running out of fuel, not to mention their innovations in tank warfare getting copied :"By 1945 the Red Army had activated forty - three tank corps, and it was their turn to do what the German army had done in 1941."(p.438)
RISE OF THE AMPHIBIANS
"At sea, air power contributed to the revolution in amphibious warfare, first in the Pacific war with the Japanese advance and the Allied counter - offensive, then in Europe with amphibious landings in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and Normandy. These were complex operations in which air, sea, and ground forces collaborated to find a way to springboard onto a heavily defended enemy shore in order to create a permanent lodgement. For the Allied sea powers, amphibious warfare was the only way to get to grips with their enemies on the territory they occupied. "(p. 439)
RADIO AND RADAR
" Radio-wave research led to the development of radar, which was initially introduced for the early warning of approaching enemy aircraft from across the sea, but soon had a range of further significant applications in the field. Among other things, radar gave advance warning of tactical attack aircraft, contributed critically to the success of anti - submarine warfare, gave notice of attacks on a fleet at sea, and allowed artillery to be ranged with deadly accuracy whether on land or aboard ships. Over the course of the conflict the advantage in electronic warfare shifted decisively to the Allies as they learned how to produce and use a technology at the cutting edge of the scientific war. " (p. 439)
INTELLIGENCE AND DECEPTION
"Radio was also central to the practice of wartime intelligence and counter-intelligence, including the development of complex deception operations... Soviet forces were masters of deception. The devastating defeat of Axis armies during Operation 'Uranus' in November 1942 and the annihilation of German Army Group Centre in June 1944 were testament to its effects. The value of Allied deception before the Normandy invasion can be open to question, but it certainly reinforced Hitler's predisposed view that Normandy would be a feint and the Pa's de Calais the primary invasion site. For the Allies, sound intelligence and successful deception helped to counteract the high fighting skills of an enemy determined to cling on to every square kilometre of the new empires. " (p. 440)
This is a great book. It's very rich in analysis of World War Two. My only complaint is the narrative chapters were so fact filled that they were a bit hard to follow. Obviously, it's all valuable stuff. But a timeline before the main text, maybe followed with some pictures of wartime newspapers, headlining the main events of the war, might have been handy. You would have been able to refer back to it as you're reading the chapters.
1. Prefata - pag. 5
2. Prolog. Polonia, Germania si statele vest-europene - pag. 7
3. Capitolul 1. Timpul se scurge - pag. 26
4. Capitolul 2. Polonia prinsa la mijloc - pag. 53
5. Capitolul 3.Razboi local sau mondial ? - pag. 83
6. Capitolul 4. Esecul eforturilor pentru pace - pag. 108
7. Concluzie. De ce razboi ? - pag. 131
8. Note - pag. 147
9. Index - pag. 185
The Eastern Front was brutal, and the fighting was on a scale that dwarfed the Western Front. Germany deployed four to five times as many divisions in the east. We talk about WWII being total war, and no where was that more true in the east, particularly of Russia, for two reasons. First, the ideological stance of the Nazis toward communism, Judaism (there were millions of Jews living in this region), and Slavs in general, meant terrible treatment of captured combatants and occupied civilian populations. And this was reciprocated by the Soviets once they had turned the tide. Second, Stalin was in a position to retool his economy and basically enslave his population in the service of that.
The Second World War in Europe was definitely, Russia's. Which is not to say they could have won it without the help of their allies. Without a doubt, the Soviet Union teetered on the brink in '42 and '43. Germany came within mere miles of taking Moscow. The US in particular supplied the Soviet Union with tens of thousands of vehicles of all types. Without these, the mobility of the Red Army, crucial to their defense of Moscow and later and more so, Stalingrad, would have been all but absent.
However, there can be little doubt that the Soviet Union and the Russian people bore the brunt of the war. And, brutal though it was, the transformation of the lackluster pre-war Soviet economy and mediocre armed forces to the total war economy and a fighting force to rival Germany's by mid-war were astounding feats. The fact that, after devastating and humiliating defeats and the loss of a third, the richest, most populated third, of the country, anyone had any willpower to continue fighting is a testament to Russia's people and leaders.
About the Audiobook
I listened to this, and the audio is pretty disappointing. The quality is not good. The volume is uneven and there is frequently background hiss.
David Case's narration is nothing to write home about, but is passable most of the time, though, I can imagine his rather nasal voice grates on some. Where it dips below passable is with the voices used for quotations from various leaders, generals, and soldiers are borderline caricatures -- overdone German and Russian accents.
How to account for this? Most histories focus on military aspects of the war, which, although important, do not address the underlying political, economic, social, and cultural conditions that facilitated such cruelty and violence - so important in light of the continuing international instability that still characterizes the world.
Overy presents this new analysis based on four underlying assumptions. First, he contends conventional chronologies of the war are no longer useful. There is little to be gained by separating the two giant world wars of the 20th Century. Second, the usual focus on the European Axis with occasional deference to action in Asia and the Pacific limits our understanding of the international currents at work and their interactions with the West. Third, the conflicts should be understood as the aggregate of a number of different smaller struggles that were waged simultaneously, including civil wars, partisan wars, and wars of liberation. And fourth, Overy argues, WWII was the last imperial war. Most general histories gloss over the significance of territorial empire in defining the period from 1931 to the aftermath of 1945. Traditional colonial rule collapsed after 1945, ending with a surfeit of “blood and ruins” and metamorphosing into the domination of a few superpowers in a new global order.
To advance these arguments, Overy proceeds in several parts. He explores the long-term factors that shaped the crisis of the 1930s. He describes WWII less from a military lens than from a social and economic perspective. He discusses the new world of nation-states that arose from the old divisions of empire. Finally, he explores the excessive violence and criminality provoked by the war.
Evaluation: I found this history extremely thought-provoking and stimulating in ways quite different from analyses of strategies and tactics. I also found myself agreeing with Overy that the social and cultural aspects of the two world wars are in the end much more critical to understanding our past and present world than the detailed analysis of individual battles or personal characteristics of different generals.
With the passing of time, and the resurgence of a growing appeal of strong men, totalitarian rule, and brutal social repression, it is more important than ever to understand what happened in our parents’ generation, and what it means for the future.
(JAB)
Overy is British so Americans reading this book will experience the occasional odd turn of phrase, spelling or sentence construction. His writing is very readable however, not like John Keegan's style at all.
Well worth reading for history buffs as it gives food for thought when reading other histories of the second world war. As is usually the case, a well written history magnifies current events and shows that even though the cast of characters has changed, human nature remains the same.
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WEPhillips | outras 6 resenhas | Oct 20, 2022 |
WEPhillips | outras 6 resenhas | Oct 20, 2022 | 
Overy fullyrðir að árið 1942 hafi Möndulveldin í raun verið með yfirburða stöðu og hefði getað knúið fram sigur áður en Bandamönnum tókst að snúa stríðinu sér í hag. Hann fer yfir nokkra lykilþætti s.s. tækni, efnahag, leiðtoga og hernað í lofti, láði og legi.
Það er skemmtilegt að lesa rit sem greinir svona lykilspurningar og gerir tilraun til að svara þeim. Mér finnst Overy gera það að mestu leyti vel þótt ákveðnar veilur megi greina í forsendum hans.
Obdobie Tretej ríše patrí medzi kľúčové v moderných dejinách a nerozlučne sa spája s osobou Adolfa Hitlera. Práve on sa rozhodujúcim spôsobom pričinil o to, že sa z nepočetnej skupiny nacionalistov stala mohutná strana, ktorá ovládla nemeckú spoločnosť, a jej vodca mohol pyšne vyhlásiť – NSDAP rovná sa štát. Dosiahol to, pravdaže, terorom, militarizáciou spoločnosti a drastickou diskrimináciou všetkých skutočných či domnelých oponentov, predovšetkým Židov.
Dejiny Tretej ríše sú spojené s agresívnym získavaním „životného priestoru“, s totálnou vojnou a s dovtedy nevídanou genocídou. Dlhý tieň Tisícročnej ríše a zlovestného Führera zasahuje moderné Nemecko dodnes – predovšetkým tým, že núti aj dnešných Nemcov (a nielen ich) hľadať odpoveď na otázku, ako sa to všetko mohlo stať, ako sa mohol vyspelý a kultúrny národ nechať tak fatálne zviesť na scestie. Odpoveď na tieto otázky sa usiluje nájsť aj táto kniha.
Tretia ríša krok za krokom, presne a presvedčivo mapuje vzostup a pád nacistickej moci. Opis historických udalostí je obohatený citáciou dokumentov – úryvkov z listov, denníkov a osobných svedectiev pamätníkov – a názorne ho dopĺňa množstvo pôvodných, pozoruhodne výrečných fotografií. Kniha tak ponúka jedinečný pohľad na toto komplikované obdobie nedávnej európskej histórie. Autor svedomito a fundovane pátra po odpovedi na to, čo umožnilo Adolfovi Hitlerovi a jeho prisluhovačom opanovať myslenie svojich spoluobčanov v takej miere, že sa zúčastňovali na neľudskom a ničím neospravedlniteľnom konaní, ktoré spôsobilo skazu miliónov životov a obrovských materiálnych hodnôt.
It’s extra length makes the book difficult to store on a traditional bookshelf.
As democracias liberais estão ausentes desta comparação. Presume-se que não seriam comparáveis a ditaduras deste tipo. Porém, em certos momentos da leitura desta obra, somos levados a crer que o êxito de ambas as ditaduras também se deveu às fragilidades e problemas do liberalismo, questões que tão prementes são no início do século XXI.
Tipicamente referem-se os aspectos mais sombrios e negativos do comunismo (ausência de melhoria das condições de vida da população, repressão severa, gulag) e do nazismo (II Guerra Mundial holocausto), esquecendo os aspectos positivos que ambos os sistemas também possuíam, pois tais aspectos coincidem com o lado negro do sistema capitalista em que vivemos, sistema duplamente vencedor: primeiro sobre o nazismo na II Guerra Mundial, depois sobre o comunismo na guerra-fria. Talvez o sistema capitalista venha a sucumbir perante um adversário ainda mais terrível: a sua ambição desmesurada!
A experiência soviética foi um fracasso; caiu de madura ao fim de 70 anos. Porém, se tal experiência tivesse ocorrido num país mais desenvolvido, como a França, o Reino Unido ou mesmo a Alemanha, talvez tivéssemos assistido a um êxito semelhante ao da Revolução Francesa de 1789.
Aliás, foi exactamente isso que sucedeu com o nazismo, regime que teve o apoio da generalidade da população, porque elegeu um inimigo comum, um alvo a abater. Tal estratégia tem vindo a ser utilizada regularmente desde o final da II Guerra Mundial pelos democráticos EUA, de modo a garantir a sua coesão interna. Em termos estritamente internos, o nazismo aparece como melhor regime para a maioria da população do que o liberalismo burguês, daí o êxito rapidamente alcançado.
É melhor ter uma utopia, mesmo impossível de alcançar ou até mesmo errada, do que não ter nenhuma ideia para além da ganância dos governantes e elites libérias.
A questão religiosa da URSS é abordada da página 315 à 324 e na Alemanha da página 324 à 334.
A ideia de ser auto-suficiente em produções estratégicas, para que não ficassem refém do capitalismo internacional, parece-me uma política económica lúcida e sóbria. Tal política apesar de completamente esquecida nestes tempos de capitalismo global, foi seguida por ambas as ditaduras, conscientes que eram do verdadeiro interesse nacional. Afinal, a economia também pode servir para enriquecer o Estado e toda a Nação e não apenas alguns indivíduos.
Os capítulos sobre a guerra têm abordagens originais e interessantes. Pareceu-me, no entanto, que os apoios americano e inglês à URSS não foram suficientemente valorizados.
Mesmo os campos de concentração, com todos os horrores que lhe estão associados, tanto faz serem alemães ou soviéticos, tem um lado positivo e que as democracias liberais deveriam seguir: não permitir que os cidadãos honestos, trabalhadores e contribuintes, sustentem a escória que se encontra presa: estes têm de merecer o seu sustento. Afinal, foram presos para serem castigados pelos seus crimes contra a sociedade.
O capítulo sobre os campos é impressionante; a humanidade no seu pior! É bizarro como em ambos os regimes ser dissidente era punido com maior rigor, do que o eram os verdadeiros criminosos. Apesar de tudo, talvez porque se destinavam a compatriotas, os campos soviéticos foram menos cruéis e letais do que os campos alemães, ou talvez porque aqui predominasse a ideia do castigo e ali a ideia da exploração da mão-de-obra.
Na conclusão, o autor defende que as ditaduras eram demasiado semelhantes para se poderem tolerar mutuamente. A chave desta ideia é posta na pena soviética de Valentim Berezkhov, de visita a Berlim disse que sentia ali como em casa.
What makes Overy's work exceptional is the relative lack of emphasis on the world of politics in this period. His book is more focused on matters economic, sociological, psychological, and spiritual in the broader sense of the entire culture not only the status of religious belief. Of course politics cannot always be omitted from the history of this period and beginning with the Spanish Civil War in 1936 politics intrudes more and more on the narrative.
Overy divides the contents into separate chapters covering multiple indices of a feeling that decline was inevitable and whether or not something could be done about it and, if yes, what were some of the most recommended solutions to their dilemma - socialism, communism, eugenics, psychoanalysis, collective security, pacifism, world government, scientism. That said, the first chapter of the book discusses the philosophies of history, particularly those of Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee that argued for ineluctable laws of historical development and decline that provided a framework for despair whose intellectual roots preceded the Great War of 1914 - 1918.
Other than the perennial problems of war and peace the crisis of capitalism was the issue that concerned most of the elites across a broad spectrum of British society. That capitalism was in crisis was generally accepted and that its prolonged death was a cause of crisis was almost as fervently believed. Overy reviews the work of thinkers such as J.A. Hobson, Beatrice and Sidney Webb, G.D.H. Cole, Maurice Dobb and of course, J.M. Keynes whose influence was predominant in this period, especially once the effects of the economic slump of the 1930s hit Britain.
One of the hot button issues that surfaced in the aftermath of the war was the physiological state of the British population which was in a very bad way according to those thinkers who favored greater state involvement in the breeding of the British. Just as the quality of the animal population could be intelligently managed, so could the human stock be improved with an eye towards preventing reproduction by the physically and mentally defective elements of the population. Among the enthusiasts of eugenics were Keynes, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Cyril Burt, one of the founders of intelligence testing, Julian Huxley the son of Darwin's follower Thomas Huxley, Leonard Darwin, 4th son of Charles, and William Inge, the dean of of St. Paul's Cathedral. (All the best people!) Of course forced sterilization and more drastic measures fell out of favor after the 1930s in part due to the enthusiasm for eugenics on the part of Adolf Hitler. That said, the politicians in Great Britain should be given credit for ignoring most of the scientific advice put forth by the "eugenists". Their practical influence never approached that of Germany or for that matter the United States.
Psychoanalysis came into its own in Britain during the 1920s starting from near ground zero mainly through the efforts of Ernest Jones an early disciple of Freud. Jones founded the London Psycho-Analytical Society in 1913, but theoretical disputes led him to dissolve the organization in 1919 and replace it with the British Psycho-Analytical Society initially composed of just twelve apostles, I mean members. Jones established the International Psycho-Analytical Press and the launched the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis in 1920. By the mid 1930s psychoanalysis had become sufficiently part of the cultural mainstream that it was suggested that just as it's methodology could be applied to the neuroses and worse of individual patients so it could provide a diagnosis and a cure for the insanity among nations, Diagnoses were certainly offered, e.g., Freud's final book, Civilization and its Discontents, but recommended cures were not forthcoming.
The problems of War and Peace, specifically its causes and what was the proper response to the threat of war occupies the next two chapters. If you really want to know the answer to the question "Why England Slept" these chapters would be a good starting point for answering the question. It is clear that the British population was morbidly in fear of a future conflict that would exceed the horrors of 1914-18 and risk the end, not just of the empire, but of British democracy and the everything associated with their civilized way of life.
Naturally, capitalism and its effects, especially imperialism, were identified as the chief cause of wars by the orthodox left, but it was recognized that war seemed to be endemic to the human experience and Britons turned to science for an explanation and a cure. Studies were aplenty from biologists, zoologists, anthropologists, psychologists, social psychologists, psychoanalysts, sociologists and yet none of them at the end of the day afforded a cure. Sir Arthur Keith, a Darwinian anthropologist, did not shrink from the logic of natural selection. He was famously quoted on the subject of human conflict in the following metaphor - "Nature keeps her human orchard healthy by pruning - war is her pruning hook". The eugenicists would have countered by pointing out that the best and the fittest males were the first ones sacrificed in modern war and that the least fit were the most likely to survive. In a work titled "Human Evolution" Keith claimed to have studied fifty-eight different authors on the question of "Why War" and identified twenty-six suggested causes. As Keith concluded, "Multiplicity of cause is usually a measure of ignorance".
It is inarguable that one of the results of the First World War was the emergence of pacifism as the predominant response to the threat of war in British elite and mass opinion. What jumps out at the reader is the multiplicity of organizations, publications, platform speeches, academic studies and mass communication on the problem of war and the promise of pacifism or the need for collective security in the form of the League of Nations. At the peak of the League's popularity a plebiscite was conducted in 1935 under the auspices of the "League of Nations Union which succeeded in getting some 12 million British adults to express their support for the League and its work towards preserving peace.
But reliance on the League of Nations meant a commitment to the principle of collective security which was beyond the pale for committed pacifists. The National Peace Council was established in 1923 with a goal of uniting all the disparate pacifist organizations into a single entity that would not compel but would eventually move all of its members to a position of absolute pacifism, i.e., non-resistance to aggression. Absolute pacifism was a movement that featured an unlikely alliance between Christians and atheists. Among the latter were included Bertrand Russell, H.G. Wells and Aldous Huxley. Ultimately the pacifist movement and the broader peace movement fractured over the rise of fascism in Europe, the civil war in Spain and the aftermath of Munich, but some of it adherents kept the "faith" right up to and even after the outbreak of World War II in September, 1939.
Overy's narrative is rich in detail, and for the most part attempts to understand the participants in this story as they understood themselves. This review only briefly sketches the issues, arguments and the players involved. Overy's paradox is that while the spirit of the times was suffused with a pessimistic belief that Britain and the West in general were faced with decline and possibly the end of its civilization, things were in relative good shape in Great Britain. The population was predominantly moderate and center-left in its politics, Neither the Communist Party of Great Britain nor the British Union of Fascists enjoyed any significant popular support. There was serious unemployment but not nearly as severe as that which plagued the United States or Germany. Incomes were on the rise for those who had jobs. Apart from the revolution in Ireland in the early 20's the status of the empire was still firm.
The implication of Overy's thesis is that the British elites and maybe the broader population's fear that the end of civilization was at hand was overwrought and unjustified. But it's a little easy to look back condescendingly on the period in question and chide the times and its populace for a lack of proportion. It was not a foregone conclusion that the Germans would attack the Soviet Union, that America would enter the war and that the Allies would prevail. Faith in the various nostrums thrown up by the 2nd quarter of the 20th century may have been misplaced but the fear of a civilizational disaster was certainly not without reason.
1 citizencane | outras 4 resenhas | Aug 23, 2020 |
citizencane | outras 4 resenhas | Aug 23, 2020 | Military history is fascinating, that much is certain, especially when related in a vivid, engaging way that appeals to the well-initiated and to the novice alike.
One of the greatest advantages of this volume is the division of the selected battles into six themes according to the factor considered to contribute to victory the most: leadership, courage in the face of fire, deception, innovation etc. Along with the introductions to each theme and an outline detailing the ways in which the factor in question can secure victory for one side, this arrangement allows for room to reflect on some universal truths related to the psychology of battle. This, in turn, provides a solid background and ensures understanding that battles are fought by people, and that analysis of these people's behaviour is tantamount to comprehending the reasons for fighting, the course of the battle, as well as the outcome.
Naturally, it is not the case that a single aspect of warfare was sufficient to win the battle (e.g. only the aptitude of the leader or the innovative strategy or weaponry alone), but the focus on those points facilitates, nay, encourages the recognition of those aspects and the role they play in every battle, so that understanding and critical appreciation of events come subtly and beautifully.
All of this perfectly justifies the choice of such a layout over the expected uninterrupted chronology (which naturally exists within the chapters). Starting from the earliest battle in the chapter and moving on to the most recent, and then doing so over and over again makes for a certain smoothness and flow in the reading process, so that the reader is refreshed each time and attention never wavers. Furthermore, the arrangement also highlights the core similarities and differences, the things that have changed and the things that have stayed the same in the 4000 years of conflict in recorded history that are covered in this book.
The choice of the battles included is another aspect that has evidently been decided on with a lot of care. Geographically and chronologically, the span of the sample is unbelievably high: it covers almost all continents from the first recorded battle at Kadesh in 1285 BC, to Operation Desert Storm just over two decades ago. So then, we encounter not only names of battles we have been familiar with since our earliest history classes at school, but such conflicts that are to this day immersed in controversy and seldom studied.
The writing itself is very pleasant and as objective as possible (even though the author does not hesitate to point out misconceptions, misattributions, the mistakes of certain commanders that led to their downfall, and instances of politics interfering with what really happened). The background and aftermath to each conflict is described as briefly, but as efficiently as possible, so that hardly any previous knowledge is required in order to follow the course of events with sufficient understanding. Facts and numbers are always included, even when their accuracy is a matter of speculation, but they are, of course, essential to grasping the magnitude of the conflict, imagining the battlefield, and, of necessity, judge the scope of human (and often animal) life lost.
Another very commendable thing is the effort to include at least one photograph for every battle detailed, the merit of which is obvious.
All in all, this is a valuable reference for anybody interested in military history for any reason and on any level.
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