re: book review by Adam Kirsch: "...But the outsider's perspective that he developed as a scholar of Poland is always in evidence. The very fact that Mr. Davies' history of Britain is not a history of Britain, but a history of "The Isles," suggests how he uses the facts of geography to unsettle the myths of history. Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England are no more Britain, Mr. Davies argues, than Poland and the Czech Republic are "the East." To understand history correctly, we must first rid of ourselves of such illusions, even comforting and comfortable ones. /"No Simple Victory" (Viking, 490 pages, $30), Mr. Davies's new book, is the latest installment in his project of illusion-demolition. This is a revisionist history of World War II, designed to shake the complacency of British and American readers who are accustomed to thinking of it as "the good war." It is not that Mr. Davies has uncovered any important new facts, or even launched any shocking reinterpretations. His purpose, rather, is to remind the world of two truths that, while well-established, he believes are not sufficiently reckoned with. /The first is that, in military terms, World War II in Europe was predominantly a war between Germany and the Soviet Union; the contributions of Britain and America, while crucial, were not of the same order. The second is that, when Nazism and Communism fought over control of Eastern Europe, there was little moral difference between them. The Soviet Union was one of the Allies, but it had less in common with Anglo-American democracy than it did with Nazi tyranny..."...
hat tip: Brothers Judd
No comments:
Post a Comment