Present Books Conducive To Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization
| Original Title: | Human Smoke: The Beginnings of WWII, the End of Civilization |
| ISBN: | 1416567844 (ISBN13: 9781416567844) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | J. Gordon Coogler Award for the worst book of the year (2008), Dayton Literary Peace Prize Nominee for NonFiction (2009) |
Nicholson Baker
Hardcover | Pages: 576 pages Rating: 3.98 | 1499 Users | 278 Reviews
Explanation In Pursuance Of Books Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization
Imagine a history of World War II that dispensed with all the mythical afterglow and self-congratulatory propaganda and instead relied on contemporaneous newspaper articles and documents to build a fine-grained portrait of leaders and events. It's an attempt at objectivity, to be sure, but Baker isn't really interested in being "objective" because no one ever can be. Instead he's a pacifist who's interested in showing how nearly every leader involved was itching for war--more war and wider war and just more killing on a scale unknown beforehand. It's a compelling way to write an anti-war history, and an eye-opening one, where Churchill is more a bumbling drunken psychopath than a hero and all leaders are united in their antipathy to the anti-war movement. Written in short passages largely devoid of commentary, it's quite provocative, occasionally infuriating (fury at those involved in the war, not Baker), and at times virtually unput-downable.
Mention Containing Books Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization
| Title | : | Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization |
| Author | : | Nicholson Baker |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 576 pages |
| Published | : | March 11th 2008 by Simon & Schuster (first published 2008) |
| Categories | : | History. Nonfiction. War. World War II. Politics. Holocaust |
Rating Containing Books Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization
Ratings: 3.98 From 1499 Users | 278 ReviewsRate Containing Books Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization
This is a truly memorable book from Nicholson Baker. I've enjoyed his artistic fiction for years, but this nonfiction history is by far his best. As always, Baker writes in extraordinary depth and detail, this a sobering portrait of civilization from 1914-1941 ... if you call it civilized. And you may not when you finish the book. It is not one more story of the holocaust, or of isolated ignorance. It is not the stuff of movies. It is about truth and knowledge of historic events. Like Baker, IA striking anti war book. Baker takes the reader through the years leading up to WWII using quotes, speeches, diaries and letters. There is much history here we would like to think humans incapable of inflicting on one another and so we want to avert our eyes. Yet it is a compelling read horrific in its cold facts and nightmarish history with some shining lights of hope offered by those courageous souls willing to stand against war.
Imagine a history of World War II that dispensed with all the mythical afterglow and self-congratulatory propaganda and instead relied on contemporaneous newspaper articles and documents to build a fine-grained portrait of leaders and events. It's an attempt at objectivity, to be sure, but Baker isn't really interested in being "objective" because no one ever can be. Instead he's a pacifist who's interested in showing how nearly every leader involved was itching for war--more war and wider war
Baker took a lot of heat for this book, a compendium of quoted materials that question the motives, logic, and real facts behind the things we assume we know about World War Two. It's a polemic that takes on the golden aura surrounding the era, and it takes shot after shot at the Allied leaders and their apparent thirst for war. The overall effect is to reduce WWII to just another corrupt, dirty conflict that shouldn't be celebrated above any other. Is it, as many claim, not entirely accurate,
The brilliance of this book lies in its restraint. Baker is not an academic historian, nor is he writing a work of conventional history. Thus, he has the good sense to make his historical argument--inasmuch as this book has an argument that you can pin down in the text--as obliquely as possible. Baker does not, as some critics would have it, say that World War II was a Bad War. Nor does he claim, as those same critics would have it, that Roosevelt and Churchill were morally no better than
A big messy book, one that took me a while to read since like 600 pages, doing it in dribs and drabs daily (easy since each page is another step towards the Holocaust starting in 1892 in a very formulaic manner--"It was July 4, 1933", etc). I was actually reading this book when Charlottesville happened and comparing the Nazis today with the Nazis then is easy--nothing has really changed. If you are trying to find a super depressing book, well look no further, because this is it. I've put off
Filled with unusual quotes regarding the principle actors up to the US Declaration of War in late 1941. Churchill's portrait is particularly zany, deadly, an ebullient megalomaniac. Hitler comes across as a sad megalomaniac. Gandhi as as a slightly unhinged and naive self-obsessive. Throughout, I wondered how Baker would prove pacifism against World War II which essentially defines the idea of a war that "had to be fought." By the end the accretion of destruction and the willful worship of the
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