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Library Journal Review

This companion to a BBC-TV series is an eminently readable revision of the causes of World War II. Expanding upon earlier revisionist studies such as A.J.P. Taylor's Origins of the Second World War (LJ 4/15/62; Atheneum, 1983. pap.), Overy presents the 1920s and 1930s as perceived by the major powers at the time without the benefit of hindsight. There are no ``pure knights'' here preparing for the ``good war,'' only paranoid politicians haunted by the effects of World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the Great Depression weaving alliances motivated by an all-pervading social Darwinism. Even Poland is not the ``innocent victim'' of hindsight; among other things, the idea for resettling Jews in Madagascar was originally Polish. One could fault Overy for playing down Stalin's more sinister machinations, but suspicious as the Western powers were of Bolshevism, they did see Russia as a deterrent to German expansion. A major contribution to renewed interest in the 1930s.--Robert Stenzel, New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

A historian and a geographer have put together a book whose title should have been "The Roads to War," for it consists of chapters showing how Germany, Britain, France, Italy, the Soviet Union, Japan, and the US each reached the decision to go to war. The authors describe the issues, domestic and foreign, that confronted each country; how its leaders and people responded to them; and how in the end the result was a world war. By virtually accepting the German argument that the Treaty of Versailles and reparations left Germany powerless, the German ability to initiate the next world war seems like a miracle. Indeed, "Versailles" replaces the Paris Peace Conference throughout the book, so that the Italian seizure of Fiume violated the treaty signed there. The Locarno Conference appears in five chapters, but only one of its many multilateral and bilateral treaties is accurately described. Aristide Briand did not originate a multilateral pact to outlaw war; that was the US State Department's counterproposal. Clearly, the book covers a vast territory; understandably it is based on monographs and memoirs rather than archival research; probably experts on the history of each country will find something to fault. All levels. -H. D. Andrews, Towson State University

Booklist Review

A panoramic survey of how World War II came to pass. The authors are scrupulous in their attempt to tell this exceedingly complex story without the benefit of hindsight--as if the outbreak and the conclusion of the war was not a foregone conclusion. This approach is at once the book's strength and weakness. On the one hand, it results in an objectivity that shades at times into a rather grayish sort of relativism. Certain truths are not illuminated, but obscured: Stalin and Hitler, for example, come across more as individuals who are swept along by history, rather than the ones who are doing the sweeping. The evil that these men personify is thus somewhat watered down. On the other hand, the authors' approach just naturally adds drama to their narrative. It also showcases their considerable literary skills. This cannot be overemphasized: Overy and Wheatcroft are cracking good writers, as well as first-rate historians. Their book is therefore highly recommended for all collections. (It is a companion volume to a BBC series of the same name.) Appendixes, references, bibliography; index. --Steve Weingartner