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    Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization
    Unavailable
    Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization
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    Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization
    Ebook562 pages8 hours

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

    By Nicholson Baker

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    At a time when the West seems ever more eager to call on military aggression as a means of securing international peace, Nicholson Baker's provocative narrative exploring the political misjudgements and personal biases that gave birth to the terrifying consequences of the Second World War could not be more pertinent.

    With original and controversial insights brought about by meticulous research, Human Smokere-evaluates the political turning points that led up to war and in so doing challenges some of the treasured myths we hold about how war came about and how atrocities like the Holocaust were able to happen. Baker reminds us, for instance, not to forget that it was thanks in great part to Churchill and England 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 Smokealsoreminds 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 gifted writing and exquisitely observant eye, Baker offers a combination of sweeping narrative history and a series of finely delineated vignettes of the individuals and moments that shaped history that is guaranteed to spark new dialogue on the subject.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster UK
    Release dateSep 4, 2008
    ISBN9781847375070
    Author

    Nicholson Baker

    Nicholson Baker is the author of nine novels and four works of nonfiction, including Double Fold, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award, and House of Holes, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, and The New York Review of Books. He lives in Maine with his family.

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    Reviews for Human Smoke

    4/5

    22 ratings18 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Written in a different style, but an important work in understanding the degradation of human decision making during WWII.
    • 2/5
      This book does explode some cherished myths of "the Good War" fought by the "Greatest Generation". Unforunately the book has simpering tone and the formating with short paragraphs and dates becomes tenious after the first few pages. This book could only be tolerable if read in short doses, perhaps on the tiolet. I will grant that the author writes well and he does provide a fresh perspective on an era most of us feel like we understand. However, the author's thesis that World War II was avoidable and the pacifists had the answer is ridicilous.
    • 5/5
      This book was one of the very few works that made me reconsider cherishshed opinions. While I knew that the Allies had not gone to war to save the Jews, I had no idea that prewar opportunities to save millions of lives were rejected because of the antisemitism of Roosevelt and Churchill. This is a tragic story of missed opportunity, and inhumanity on both sides of the war.
    • 4/5
      An unusual and illuminating work. Personally I like the "snippet" approach as it gives a sense of relentless progression that fully rounded historical narratives rarely do. And as an alternative view of the march to war it is an eye opener. Personally I don't think Baker is trying to contend that "the pacificists were right", simply that there were possible paths to peace that were ignored, and the plans to subdue Japan way before Pearl Harbour is probably the most surprising theme. Of course its no surprise that some of the most venerated war leaders were hardly without flaws especially Churchill. And non of the bombing enthusiasts come out of the narrative well.
    • 5/5
      Such a strange book. It's history as haiku, little more than a series of snapshots from the road to war. And while it's bereft of any direct editorializing, Baker manages to select his material in such a way to promote the idea that World War II, "the good war," was actually anything but.

      That said, I'm not sure that I actually buy his argument. Nobody comes off well in the book, especially figures such as Churchill and Roosevelt. But even the pacifists seem more than a little foolish and naive. It's hard not to cringe when Gandhi says, "I can conceive the necessity of the immolation of hundreds, if not thousands, to appease the hunger of dictators ... Sufferers need not see the result in their lifetime." I'm reminded of Nader supporters in 2000, angrily claiming that there was no difference between Gore and Bush; while I can understand their perspective, the eight years since have proven pretty conclusively that their argument breaks down in the face of reality.

      I don't like war, but it's hard, especially after reading about the vast brutality of Hitler and the Nazi party, to believe that World War II could have or should have been avoided.
    • 4/5
      A very interesting look at "The Beginnings of World War II", as the sub-title says.The style is unusual. It's a collection of snippets of information, quotes, anecdotes, etc, in chronological order. Most are just a paragraph or two; few are longer than one page.While it's not an anti-war book per se, it does appear to concentrate on things which make the reader question the justification ofr World War II. It is very selective and misses out much that might support the war, but in my view that is justified as the accepted myths of the war are well known and widely publicised. The counter arguments have received very little attention elsewhere, so this is a welcome attempt to redress the balance. It contains some classic quotes.Far from being a clear cut case of good chaps v evil blokes, the book raises complexities and ambiguities. These include the ambuguity of all nations towards the Jews; the strong feeling by many that Communism was the greatest of all enemies; the pervasive influence of the arms industry; the games that all the great powers were playing; and much more.All in all, an excellent book, and a valuable resource for those who wish to explore non-violent solutions to conflict.
    • 2/5
      This book poses as history but the author uses the technique of juxtaposing bald quotations, ripped out of context, to try to place Churchill on the same moral plane as Adolf Hitler. Dedicated to pacifists who the author claims, "failed, but they were right." The book fails to consider that much of the responsibility for allowing Hitler to believe that the West would not fight belongs to those same pacifists. The bias in this books accumulates inexorably to an astonishing level. If it had been more nuanced, better researched. or more intelligent, then this readers interest might have been sustained. Look elsewhere to historians like Martin Gilbert for the history of World War II.
    • 4/5
      I found Nicholson Baker's unflinching presentation of the events leading up to America's entry into WWII a moving reminder that getting the facts is a slippery matter at the best of times; in war it is impossible. This makes me think that since we're always either leading up to war or in war, we can never hold onto the facts or apprehend the truth which seems to live forever on a metal table dying of multiple stab-wounds.
      There were many moments in this book where I realized everything I knew was wrong. And this disturbed me, how newsreels seen in childhood with their plucky music and exploding skies could allow me to swallow the pattern whole; the template for many myths I never questioned. This book also helped me make sense of the Cold War, which I see now is a refinement of a half-century dedicated to making all out war against civilians acceptable.
      I was also struck, while I read this book, by a sense of observing the barbarism of another time, like reading about a Roman general lining a wide dirt road with a thousand severed heads on sharp sticks. But I recognize this as a dangerous illusion fostered by living in a new century. We are no different. The dedicated pacifists and non-resistants (given rare tribute in this book) know this all too well as they work to convince us that our baser selves are not human nature. That is propaganda. We are better than that, and we are capable of doing less wrong.
      Perhaps, like me, you have put yourself in that civilized club of the less wrong. You do not need such a lesson, and you would prefer such people stop their dull preaching. But pause a moment to count the explosions at the cineplex, and think about the raised middle fingers and audible fuck-yous that pepper any given day among your fellow consumers. The next war lives in those fingers.
    • 4/5
      Nicholson Baker is no stranger to controversy and his latest book is controversial. A collage of snippets from news stories, diaries and other sources, Baker assembles an unflattering portrait of the world from about 1935 through the end of 1941. Anti-Semitism, indifference, profiteering and decisions to bomb residential areas as a way of undermining one's enemies' morale all come to the fore, along with other less attractive aspects of humanity. Baker doesn't always play fair in his display of vignettes but this book is moving and thought-provoking.
    • 4/5
      Baker has turned over his usual microscopic detail to others and let them speak about the era leading to the US declaratio of War. He chooses who will speak, and often comments, nonetheless the book indites all of us, living and dead, for believing war is in anyway a solution to conflict. We may have to wage war, but it is no solution. Baker shreds the whole idea of "a just war" that surrounds WWII--you may not agree with him but you do have to listen carefully and think with him.
    • 4/5
      Picked this up at work. Baker sets out to correct some of the myths that led to WWII.A collection of primary and secondary source accounts from papers, diaries, etc. that illustrate the build up from WWI to WWII. Hitler, of course, was a madman, but Churchill and FDR don't exactly come off smelling like roses. A lot of attention is given to pacifist movements throughout the world and how they were ultimately crushed by the blood lust of war. I was particularly disturbed by the US's positioning to go to war with Japan as early as 1934.
    • 4/5
      Consisting of nothing but one paragraph snippets, the work purports to take the reader from the end of World War I to just after then entry of the US into World War II in December 1941. A great deal of what is related is repeated from contemporary sources, particluarly the NY Times.Given the format, the writing the tilted a bit to the sensational, and given the author's biases doubtless displayed a bit more prominently than was deserved the thoughts and efforts of pacifists during the period. By the last I mean they were decidedly fringe views, yet Baker gives them more prominence and protrays them as being a bit more prominent than deserved.Churchill is uniformly villifed, Roosevelt as well, though probably not to the same extent. Other than that there were some interesting tidbits about the US cheerfully sailing oil tankers by Japan AFTER the embargo was in place for the USSR. Ditto the bits about Japanese efforts to spread plague via dropping poisioned food. Neither of these facts had ever crossed my radar before. I'm inclined to doubt the sloppy hero worship some of whom pass for conservatives send Churchill's way, yet I also cannot but think the characterization here is fair.As an absolute aside and apropos of nothing, I was a bit irritated to see the library of my alma mater, the University of New Hampshire, referred to as, well, "the University of New Hampshire Library," in the afterward. In my day it was always called the "Dimond Library." And yet, there's next to no reference to that name on the current library website. So, while my irritation is legitimate, the object of it was not. Can't blame Baker for that one, it appears.
    • 5/5
      A disappointment, although a masterful collection of "soundbites" before the term came into use. How anyone can conclude, as the author does in his "Afterward", that the pacifists were right is beyond me. In a world with a Hitler, pacifism leads only to death. If the Pacifists had prevailed there would be no Jews left at all. I am also concerned about the books treatment of pre-war Japan. Reading only this book one would believe that the peace loving Japanese were forced into war by the conniving west. The single greatest atrocity of the era, the 1937-38 Rape of Nanking with over 300,000 casualties is dismissed with a single soft pedeled sentance. Japanese documents make it clear that Japan had decided on a war of conquest in the late twenties, and nothing America or England could have done, save perhaps abject surrender, would have changed that. The book contains much we should all read and know, but it is not an accurate account of resistance to monsters not faced in many generations.
    • 4/5
      A very interesting look at "The Beginnings of World War II", as the sub-title says.The style is unusual. It's a collection of snippets of information, quotes, anecdotes, etc, in chronological order. Most are just a paragraph or two; few are longer than one page.While it's not an anti-war book per se, it does appear to concentrate on things which make the reader question the justification ofr World War II. It is very selective and misses out much that might support the war, but in my view that is justified as the accepted myths of the war are well known and widely publicised. The counter arguments have received very little attention elsewhere, so this is a welcome attempt to redress the balance. It contains some classic quotes.Far from being a clear cut case of good chaps v evil blokes, the book raises complexities and ambiguities. These include the ambuguity of all nations towards the Jews; the strong feeling by many that Communism was the greatest of all enemies; the pervasive influence of the arms industry; the games that all the great powers were playing; and much more.All in all, an excellent book, and a valuable resource for those who wish to explore non-violent solutions to conflict.
    • 5/5
      GoodReads keeps eating my review (including one several paragraphs long). The book is very good. GoodReads is being an asshole.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This is a unique work of history. It resembles a cut and paste job, with snippets arranged chronologically from prior to World War I to December 31, 1941. The short passages are made up of excerpts from correspondence, diaries, newspaper reporting, government documents, and transcripts, and the resulting mosaic reveals how nations and individuals--from pacifists to generals--coped with the onrush of the Second World War. Charles Lindbergh shows an affection from Nazi Germany and a reluctance to confront that is rather appalling. The author seems to be particularly fascinated by those who were against state violence, who were greater in number than previously reported. They, together with American isolationists (like Lindbergh), kept the United States from aiding Britain and France more fully as the world drifted to war, and there are a number of passages describing individuals who were convicted of not registering with the draft because of their philosophy. Ghandi also is quoted repeatedly, and he never sacrificed his non-violent views no matter how barbarous the war became. This is history as impressionism, and expescially sad are the comments of European Jews who did not seem to comprehend the awful fate that awaited them. What's clear though is that they were orphans, with no country willing to take them in as the great murder of a race picked up momentum. Also controversial, was Churchill's strategy of starving Europe immaterial of whether those who suffered were combatants or not. The pacifists sought to aid the hungry--including Herbert Hoover. Yet another facet that was presented was that prior to the "Battle of Britain," in which the Luftwaffe bombed British cities and civilians, England had been doing the same to German, Italian, and French cities for months. This detail seems hidden in the victory of the allies, but it confirms a pacifist truth: that in war no one comes away without blood on their hands and not much is accomplished. In this case, of course, without blood, Hitler and the Nazis would have survived, so sometimes non-violence can self-destructive. Ghandi would say that the lives of individuals who practice non-violence are less important than the principle. Also, that it might take decades to achieve a goal (and how many bodies?) So how rational is non-violence in the face of complete evil?
    • 3/5
      The subtitle for this book is "The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization." I love it when "they" keep subtitles simple, without overstating their case. The first part of the subtitle meant that I wasn't surprised when the book left off at the end of 1941, after World War II had been thoroughly begun, but before things got completely underway in involving the entire world. The second part is a little more problematic, since really it seems that from some of the evidence presented, civilization had ended before the war even started.The format of the book was to give information and excerpts from a contemporary source, and then to give the date on which those events occurred or opinions were expressed. I imagine that's repetitive on the page, but in audio format, it also reminded me a bit of the "you are there" series of historical reenactments on TV. (Aside: I don't know when or where those actually aired; we only saw them in my 7th grade history class, but boy were they corny.) The through-lines of the information presented were these: 1. Nobody, including the governments of the US and the UK, were fans of Jews, and they weren't too shy to say it, at least in some contexts. 2. Hitler seemed like a weirdo, but the rest of the world tried to pull some sort of self-esteem-building, parental thing on him and just say publicly that they were sure he'd get a handle on things and stop beating up his own citizens soon. 3. The US (FDR, really) was spoiling for a fight with Japan, and essentially baited the hook of Pearl Harbor with the US Navy. And here's a bonus thing I learned: Bombing things was a lot harder than you might think, particularly if you were trying at all to bomb the right things. On the other hand, that ultimately meant that you could make a lot of "mistakes." This was certainly a different perspective on things; whether the picture painted from various sources was entirely accurate, I'll leave for someone else to decide. I take everything I read with a grain of salt, and this is no exception. I will say that whatever interest the material provided was in spite of the format. I can't imagine many more tedious ways to write a book than "X diarist wrote Y about Germany. It was July 3, 1937. President Roosevelt said Z to the American people. It was August 7, 1940. Person A saw planes fly overhead blah blah blah. It was still August 7, 1940." With the right narrator (Ben Stein?), this could put you to sleep in record time.
    • 4/5
      This chronological collection of anecdotes documenting the lead-up into WWII adds up to a profound argument for pacifism. What emerges is not a Good War of Allies vs Axis but rather a global tragedy brought about by warmongers on all sides--Hitler's crazed aggression is joined by the distressingly Cheneyesque lies and manipulations of Churchill and even FDR.

      There's the failure of the allies to allow more Jewish emigration out of Germany before it was too late, the multi-year British naval blockade to starve Germany and then occupied Europe, the American naval oil embargo on Japan and military collaboration with Japan's enemy China, FDR's decision to leave the entire American fleet holed up at Pearl Harbor despite numerous warnings that a Japanese attack was inevitable, and much more. There are also sane and reasonable pacifist voices, notably Gandhi, the American congresswoman Jeannette Rankin and numerous relief societies--even Herbert Hoover, who argued against the food embargos, sounds a note of humanity.

      My one gripe is that the book wholly consists of discrete chunks, usually just a paragraph or so long, which are separated by far too much white space--probably half the paper surface in the paperback edition is blank. Seems like a waste and making the book about 40% bigger and heavier than it need be.