Nicholson Baker

A study of the decades leading up to World War II profiles the world leaders, politicians, business people, and others whose personal politics and ideologies provided an inevitable barrier to the peace process and whose actions led to the outbreak of war.

The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization

Human Smoke

I.m. ruzz

an unconventional take on the genesis of world war II. To date, the most persuasive argument of the existence of "war fever", a hard to prove, but well documented part of the human experience. 

He redefined Churchill and FDR for me and despite the horrors of the nazi regime made a strong case for Hitler initially trying to contain the scope of war. 

Ironically, or not, the injection of the "peace" focused elements of the book from gandhi's ridiculousness on had the opposite effect I think was intended. While i was surprised to find there was as much activism at that time as there was it remained the infective hand wringing of "higher" selves who refuse to live in the animal world we currently occupy. The addition of their point of view added to my feeling that they offer nothing useful in avoiding war, or dealing with aggression. 

the simple truth of life is that we are animals competing for resources. and the cost is often conflict and death. This is natural and the violence is built into the system for a reason. 

To suggest we can simply wait out tyranny and aggression as no dictator, or violent regime can last is both naive and the very height of human hubris--wherein we use consciousness to elevate ourselves beyond the struggles and realities every other animal on the planet deals with daily. 

In a perfect world we'd find ways to prevent greed and war-mongering to define our political experience but we don't live in that world as well documented by FDR all but flying japanese fighter planes into Pearl Harbor himself. he set the table on every front for that attack, and then used it to turn America into a global super power. 

and in doing so, gave Americans a wonder of false moral imperative unparalleled till 9/11, and simultaneously set them on course to have decades of affluence to complain and suffer existential angst about. 

the real downside of this book for me was that it likely ruined band of brothers for me. I liked the romantic US approved myth it fed me and I can no longer be roused by it.

Ashley Morin

Unique, brilliantly-executed and sure to spark controversy and debate about our past as well as our future, HUMAN SMOKE powerfully illustrates the world's gradual and horrifying advance towards World War II and the Holocaust. Were the voices of the time predicting its inevitability? Meticulously researched and incredibly well-documented, Nicholson Baker uses sources including newspaper and magazine articles, radio broadcasts, memoirs and diaries to juxtapose hundreds of interrelated moments of decision, brutality, suffering and mercy - all cleverly structured in a series of powerful vignettes. Questioning the much-romanticised myths of the 1930s and '40s, Baker shows us that it was thanks in part to Churchill that Mussolini ascended to power so quickly, and that, before leading the United States against Nazi Germany, a young FDR spent much of his time lobbying for a restriction in the number of Jews admitted to Harvard. Conversely, HUMAN SMOKE also reminds us of those who had the foresight to anticipate the coming bloodshed and the courage to oppose the tide of history, as Gandhi demonstrated when he made his symbolic walk to the ocean - for which he was immediately imprisoned by the British. Praised by critics and readers alike for his exquisitely observant eye and deft, inimitable prose, Nicholson Baker has assembled a narrative within HUMAN SMOKE that unfolds gracefully, tragically and persuasively. An utterly compelling account of the sickening loss humanity has borne at its own hand which poses the question: Are we going down the same path again?

Human Smoke The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization

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