Fascinating

The most insightful book on the background of both world wars. Addresses and brings to light facts which are not taught or ever mentioned in academia. This book reinforces the saying "history is written by the victors"

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Excellent interpretation

The reader does an excellent job. This is easy to listen too with no attempt to act out a drama. Though the content deals with dramatic stuff what we hear is historical interpretation.
It is pretty obvious at times Buchanan is politically on the right wing of American conservatism, eg his views on communism and fascism in the post war era show a blindness to how weak the former is in the USA and how strong the later is today and then.
However he sees the subject matter in a more objective manner and sustains his arguments well. In a nutshell Hitler did not want a world war in the late thirties and early forties but Churchill did. Hitler would have ended the war early if he could have found a way out. Churchill was determined to carry on at terrible costs if necessary. Churchill thought the British Empire could win (with a little help from it's friends). Hitler new Germany could not. The whole thing was avoidable and the consequence of the errors on all sides and much less to do with German aggression than is often claimed. Yes he makes it clear Hitler was a monster and Nazism is evil, but also shows Churchill as an amoral manipulator with poor judgment, a war monger with contempt for neutrality and an imperialist willing to use the clothes of a democrat as the disguise that would help get him the aid he needed from the USA. Czech and Polish stupidity contributed to their own downfalls. I'm British but see that the British politicians do not come out of this well but nobody else does either. German, Czech, Polish, French, American, Italian Politicians, and others all make serious errors
If you swallow your politics and national bias, and make allowances for Buchanan's you will find this book factually well sustained and thought provoking.

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2 people found this helpful

A mind-blowing exposure of Churchill

An excellent revision of WWI and WWII and Churchill's role in both. Narration was fantastic, with excellent pace in reading and clear.

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5 people found this helpful

Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War

From the moment I read the provocative cover, until I finished listening..I was completely spellbound. I had not connected the author as the hard right american presidential nominee who opened Bushs(senior)'92 republican congress. I thought I was listening to a Leon Trotsky refusniks analysis,. Hindsight is 20/20 vision but that does not mean we shouldn't take a cold hard look. Spanning both conflgrations the depth and breadth of the scholarship is impressive but the conclusions incendiary! Most hagiographies of Churchill concede his love of cordite and gunsmoke at the expense of a more measured strategic response. Buchanan asserts the heresy that Churchill was the wrong man at at the wrong time. Buchanan makes the argument that it could all have been different if Hitler (as the Soviet union was post WW2) could have been contained and his eastern expansion would have been checked by that other monster Stalin at great expense to both tyrants. Most standard WW2 histories will acknowledge the irony that the democracies were saved by communisms mercilous prosicution of the eastern war. Buchanan asserts that the war in the west was the wrong war at the wrong time for the western democracies. Britain went to war for Poland, and subsequently abandonded her to a monstrous communist regime (the Katyn forest, to mention one maasacre) under the guise of realpolitik (which wiould have been better employed in '39. Buchanan's analysis of Hitlers designs on Checkoslovakia and Danzig and Memel in will surprise many and were regarded at the time as reasonable territorial claims(though not the methods). Listen, be infuriated, perplexed, the starkness of the heresy and its legacies to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Uncomfortable, fascinating, illuminating, unmissable.

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9 people found this helpful

The Churchill cult

A valuable book. It would be better without the occassional paragraphs which contradict the central argument. They read as if they were inserted grudgingly, maybe at the insistence of the publisher.

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1 person found this helpful

Good listen, I recommend.

Good to listen to something different than the narrative we're fed on this topic. I recommend anyone with an interest in the (modern) history of Europe listen/read this book.

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4 people found this helpful

Eye opening!

The book answers many questions you never asked and some you never thought of.

Highly recommended.

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4 people found this helpful

Excellent read/listen

If you want to listen to a history book that deviates off the well known ‘sanitised’ versions that are written, then I highly recommend this book. As an Englishman I am filled with an overwhelming feeling of sadness at how England in particular, and the West as a whole, have declined due to catastrophic decisions being made by the past leaders of our Nations.

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6 people found this helpful

At least we're not speaking German....

This really succinctly, without normie short circuiting (you know what I mean), how it really went down...

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1 person found this helpful

Good story. One for the uses and abuses of history historiography.

The U.S.A. Is an empire. It took good care to wipe out the pesky natives on the way to manifest destiny. Still more fled to British North America.
The U.S.A. Then devoured the ageing Spanish empire. In the 20th century it sat on the sideline devouring the wealth of stupid European empires. It’s wealthy elites kept down and oppressed the Jim Crow slaves on the old South. Toyed with Nazism in the 30s. Britain had alway a pomposity and religious undertone. The first country on earth to abolish slavery and enforce that abolition at the point of a frigate. I agree the European entanglement is a folly. In 1914 Edward Grey did the greatest disservice to Britain of almost any man in history save Boris Johnson. Johnson has engaged in yet another European war at vast expense in support of a country that if victorious wants to run off and join a hostile political grouping the EU. Folly of the grand old order.
As for the books final analysis that new conservatives have re-engaged in the US in overseas wars. The great President Trump was the first president since since before Roosevelt not to engage in a overseas war.

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