[by Mark Safranski, a.k.a. “zen“]
Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor / Hiroshima / 9-11 / Iraq
by John Dower
Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1934-1941
by William Shirer
Moral Combat: Good and Evil in World War II
by Michael Burleigh
Picked up a few more books for the antilibrary.
Dower is best known for his prizewinning Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II
, which unfortunately, I have never read. Berlin Diaries I have previously skimmed through for research purposes but I did not own a copy. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
was an immensely bestselling book which nearly everyone interested in WWII reads at some point in time. I would put in a good word for Shirer’s lesser known The Collapse of the Third Republic: An Inquiry into the Fall of France in 1940
. It was a very readable introduction to the deep political schisms of France during the interwar and Vichy years which ( as I am not focused on French history) later made reading Ian Ousby’s Occupation: The Ordeal of France 1940-1944
more profitable.
I am a fan of the vigorous prose of British historian Michael Burleigh, having previously reviewed Blood and Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism
here and can give a strong recommendation for his The Third Reich: A New History
. Burleigh here is tackling moral choices in war and also conflict at what Colonel John Boyd termed “the moral level of war” in a scenario containing the greatest moral extremes in human history, the Second World War.
The more I try to read, the further behind I fall!
This entry was posted
on Sunday, February 9th, 2014 at 5:01 am and is filed under 9/11, academia, al qaida, authors, book, contemplative, cultural intelligence, culture, diplomatic history, dystopia, extremists, Failed State, foreign policy, Germany, government, historians, historiography, history, hitler, Human Rights, ideas, intellectuals, iraq, islamist, japan, military, military history, Morality, Musings, nazis, nuance / subtlety, state failure, state terrorism, strategy, Strategy and War, terrorism, war.
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