Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization | Nicholson Baker

Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization | Nicholson Baker | Worth reading

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Human Smoke: The B...

	Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization Nicholson Baker Simon & Schuster, 2008 - 576 pages average customer review:based on 65 reviews view larger image
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A better book to read...

I give it five stars for its THESIS, but it is sloppy with the facts. The THESIS that World War Two was just as pointless and self-defeating as Iraq. A more accurate account with the same THESIS is:

Churchill, Hitler And The Unnecessary War, by Patrick Buchanan.

Worth reading

I was born at the end of WWII, so I grew up hearing a lot about the war. Most of the info in this book was new to me and I'm sure it will be to other people. Very well written and easy to read except for having to absorb all the misery and death. Reminds us that war should always be the very last resort.

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Excellent and Important, but not really New..

Mr. Baker does the world a great favor here by beginning with the countdown to WW2. Starting with the Nobel dynamite, which the inventor thought would be the horrific weapon to end all war (little did he know), ending on New Year's Eve,1941, we have a chronology of events, large and small, and all sides do not come across well. The shine is not always showing in the much-publicized "Good War". Various white washed events like the Brit embargo (in both wars), Churchill's cynical bellicosity, the US not as innocent as we like to think, taunting Japan and arming Britain..and nearly all the leaders ignoring peace overtures, phony or not. And he shows that there were peace advocates, largely ignored or bullied by those in power. The leadup to 9-1-39 is slightly played down, and a case could be made that the Hitler gang is humanized a bit, and the Allies criticized too much. Certainly worth a read, and as a read it is near fantastic, if maybe simplifying the causes of the war slightly.

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Scrapbook Polemic

First of all, I agree with the point of view that war is the most horrendous, not to say bizarre, human activity and that as time goes on it is getting worse not better, more bestial. Apart from some differences in technology, our war making most resembles war making in the insect world. So I think it's simply normal to hate war, especially as conducted now: against civilians, indifferently, as if you were playing a video game.

Having said that, I found this book, which is pacifist in intent, pretty annoying. By joining together news clippings and descriptions of minor events in a chronological order with brief commentary, he builds his case by implication, rather than just stating it. I suppose this would be all right. I don't dispute the facts nor the obvious inferences, but obviously if you just went through every newspaper and picked out the items that fit your "agenda", you could build a case that World War II never happened at all.

The fact that Roosevelt and Churchill were looking for a way to get the U.S. involved in the war regardless of how many innocent lives were lost is I guess incontestable. Churchill not warning the people of Coventry that a huge attack was expected is unforgivable. There's a lot that reflects badly on Churchill. It needs to be remembered that his rhetorical magic helped a great many miserable people get through miserable times, insubstantial as rhetoric is and this is because it was pugnacious and aggressive. If someone attacks you or your family, your instinct is to fight back. The extensive quotes from Gandhi that generally suggest that you should lie down and let them trample you come across as naive, at best. Anyway, it wasn't going to happen. There's going to have to be a fundamental change in human beings, not simply political - policy changes if war is going to end. And I don't think it's impossible, I just think it's highly improbable. Our country's mythology and the historical mythologies of most countries is based on winning wars, defeating evil, and, as I say, our natural instinct is: if pushed to push back.

Personally, I don't think the leaders were or are as responsible for what they do as is generally thought. After all, Hitler and Stalin were insane, Churchill was drunk all the time. It seems to me that all these people were swept along by the cyclone of events and all the victims swept along too.

I think it's good that the view of World War II is being revised. All the triumphalism needs to be muted and the deplorable nature of these events needs to be confronted, as much as we can at this distance. The fire bombing of Germany was no more to be celebrated than the bombing of Rotterdam or London or Stalingrad were. Let's not think modern warfare represents a positive evolution, it only shows us that the end is near.

Anyway, this is obviously a provocative book, and I think you should read it if you're interested in the run-up to World War II, but read other books on the subject too. You need to develop a historical context. As an example, all the items about the United States' attempts to build a Chinese air force so that it could bomb Japan make it seem as though Japan was unjustly provoked. I don't recall that he even mentioned the "Rape of Nanking".

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