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Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931-1945
Richard Overy sets out in Blood and Ruins to recast the way in which we view the Second World War and its origins and aftermath. He argues that this was the 'last imperial war', a violent end to almost a century of global imperial expansion which reached its peak in the territorial ambitions of Italy, Germany and Japan in the 1930s and early 1940s, before descending into the largest and costliest war in human history and the end, after 1945, of all territorial empires.
How war on a huge scale was fought, supplied, paid for, supported by mass mobilization, and morally justified forms the heart of this new account. Above all, Overy explains the bitter cost for those involved in fighting, and the exceptional level of crime and atrocity that marked the war and its aftermath. This war was as deadly for civilians as it was for the military, a war to the death over the future of the global order.
Blood and Ruins is a masterpiece from of one of the great historians of the Second World War, which will compel us to view the war in novel and unfamiliar ways. Thought-provoking, original and challenging, Blood and Ruins sets out to understand the war anew.
How war on a huge scale was fought, supplied, paid for, supported by mass mobilization, and morally justified forms the heart of this new account. Above all, Overy explains the bitter cost for those involved in fighting, and the exceptional level of crime and atrocity that marked the war and its aftermath. This war was as deadly for civilians as it was for the military, a war to the death over the future of the global order.
Blood and Ruins is a masterpiece from of one of the great historians of the Second World War, which will compel us to view the war in novel and unfamiliar ways. Thought-provoking, original and challenging, Blood and Ruins sets out to understand the war anew.
1036 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 29, 2021
About the author
Richard Overy
134 books280 followersRichard James Overy is a British historian who has published extensively on the history of World War II and the Third Reich.
Educated at Caius College, Cambridge and awarded a research fellowship at Churchill College, Professor Overy taught history at Cambridge from 1972 to 1979, as a fellow of Queens' College and from 1976 as a university assistant lecturer. In 1980 he moved to King's College London, where he became professor of modern history in 1994. He was appointed to a professorship at the University of Exeter in 2004.
His work on World War II has been praised as "highly effective in the ruthless dispelling of myths" (A. J. P. Taylor), "original and important" (New York Review of Books) and "at the cutting edge" (Times Literary Supplement.)[
Educated at Caius College, Cambridge and awarded a research fellowship at Churchill College, Professor Overy taught history at Cambridge from 1972 to 1979, as a fellow of Queens' College and from 1976 as a university assistant lecturer. In 1980 he moved to King's College London, where he became professor of modern history in 1994. He was appointed to a professorship at the University of Exeter in 2004.
His work on World War II has been praised as "highly effective in the ruthless dispelling of myths" (A. J. P. Taylor), "original and important" (New York Review of Books) and "at the cutting edge" (Times Literary Supplement.)[
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 96 reviews
February 18, 2022
I cannot praise this book enough. Eighty years since the battles of Guadalcanal, El Alamein and Stalingrad, Overy's 878-page masterpiece manages to cover much more than the canonical Second World War in one perfectly arranged volume. It is the new starting point for its study.
Overy solves the problem of the competition between narrative and thematic history by doing both in an orderly way. Four chapters take the story from 1931 to 1945, seven chapters look at the great themes of the conflict and a final chapter looks at the legacy of the war in decolonisation.
He takes one broad interpretative position (that the conflict must be seen as an essentially imperial struggle between older and aspirant empires finally decided by new ideological structures that were against empire) and asks one question that he never actually answers perhaps because he cannot.
That most interesting question is why vast populations within the contesting powers suddenly switched into behaviours that involved the acceptance of conscripted enslavement and complicity in mass murder under the command of relatively small elites with the levers on power.
It is a question of fundamental importance to our objective assessment of the capability and worth of our own species and is probably beyond the ability of any working historian to answer without moving into speculative territory that would work against his or her credibility.
What Overy does, though, is provide the facts as efficiently and as completely as may be possible in a single volume so that we can make our own anthropological and perhaps moral judgements of what happened not only in the fourteen years of imperial war but afterwards.
I might criticise him a little for one lapse in one section in failing to question the standard moral narrative provided to us in the West by our victorious history but I think not lapsing would have taken him into such dangerous territory that his book would have been devalued immediately.
I cannot blame him for not answering the question he poses because the answer may be very frightening to all of us, to our own self-image of being individuals and not a herd, of being good rather than evil, of being superior to animals rather than fundamentally animal ourselves.
The precise mechanisms of power are not merely institutional, they are fundamentally psychological and anthropological. They lie in issues as basic as the pecking order that you find in nature and the way co-operative behaviours create dependency on others.
The consequential horrors of nation-empires at war are provided as facts on the ground and not as evidence in some moralistic polemic. One picture he has of what would be primary school children being guided by trusted authority into gas vans is the tip of a terrifying abyss of murder.
The Holocaust is the known worst or is it? Do we sometimes conveniently present the Holocaust as a 'unique' horror so that we can load all the evil onto one apparently unnatural event run by demons from hell in order not to face the sheer breadth and depth of violence in war?
This is the problem. The Holocaust was actually a natural event, the latest in a long line of genocides in history and prehistory but one merely with access to inventive technologies. The perpetrators were not demons but humans such as you might see walking down your street.
Let us step back to the primary focus of the book. Three aggressive 'hungry' powers challenge two fat self-satisfied empires in an expectation of empire as their right. But why do they consider it their right? Because they think themselves 'civilised' and civilisation means empire.
What does empire mean? It means the control of vast areas of the world as natural territory where 'lesser' human beings exist to serve the civilised and where any brutality is acceptable to control those peoples and clear space for the civilised and their needs.
Does that sound familiar? It should. Because the Axis imperial mission is precisely what the British, French and the Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese and Belgians had done in the not-so-recent past and what American Manifest Destiny did to indigenous peoples in their turn.
In other words the mentality behind brutality was created and shaped by what we think as the 'good guys' in the Second World War who could moderate their position only because their command and control (and brutality) had worked - it had created a resource base.
The Japanese looked at China and thought that it was their right to own it before the Westerners could seize it. The Germans looked East, seeing Slavs as if they were African natives with the problem of the Jews a gross racial inconvenience. Italy wanted a slice of an Africa already carved up.
It is undoubtedly true that Axis racism and brutality was of another order to that of the older empires (or at least the Axis brought their brutality closer to home and 'civilisation') but the mental map and attitudes would not be alien to British officials in India or French in Indo-China.
The other victors too were lesser demons rather than angels. The hypocrisy of a deeply racist US in trumpeting the rights of man is well known as is that of the Soviet Union with its Gulag and its strategy of slaughtering national elites as it did in Katyn Wood.
Of course, when war broke out, we see the conduct of Japanese troops (the rape of Nanking and the slaughter in Manila), of German troops (with the Wehrmacht willing war criminals ready to slaughter families) and of Italian troops murderous in their inept and blundering way.
But, before too long, Churchill was complicit in the deliberate terror bombing tactics of Harris over Germany and Roosevelt in the equally vicious and deliberately terror-directed fire-bombing of Tokyo while Soviet troops raped their way across Prussia with complete tolerance back in Moscow.
One officer who protested rape ended up in the Gulag for 'bourgeois humanism'. American intelligence officers had a tough time trying to get front line troops in the Pacific to take prisoners for questioning.
This gets us back to the problem of our species. This is that we are not truly free individuals (or rather only some of us are). However, we are not a potential hive either as might be suggested in the nightmare post war fashionable liberal critiques of totalitarianism.
What we are is something closer to a complex herd species, perhaps with a lemming quality. At a certain point, we all willingly coalesce into a social narrative not of our making and quite possibly personally harmful to us and our families and have done so certainly since the Greek city-state.
As the international socialists crumbled within days of imperial-national war being declared in 1914 so did the churches in 1939 and 1941, despite all the cant of believing in the gospel of peace of Jesus Christ. Only the Jehovah's Witnesses showed courage and many died for that reason.
Pacifists too represented very considerable movements of people in the 'free world' in the late 1930s but they too crumbled under social pressure quickly. Here we get to the heart of the matter - reality is socially constructed and war allows elites to construct that reality.
The mechanism by which our herd species, allowed freedom in peace in the West at least, enslaves itself to imperial elites is what is not and cannot be covered in this book but the book is absolutely invaluable to the person who wants to start that process of understanding.
It is an understanding that is vital because you can see the same mechanisms re-emerging even as I write this in the struggle for mastery between the latest iteration of imperial conflict, a process that goes back at least to the facing off of the Egyptians and Hittites at Megiddo (Armageddon).
This time the now-cyclical nonsense is between the 'West' (actually the political class of the Western alliance) and the 'SCO' (the political elites in Moscow and Beijing). Once again, reality is being falsely constructed by both sides to get their herds moving in the right direction.
For this reason, Overy's book is not just a history book, it is a book that gives us the raw data in a new form, without bias or loss of moral compass, that we need to understand our own situation - impotent as individuals before the mass and the State as manipulator of the mass.
The social construction of reality under the command of elites is not a false reality or 'fake news', it is reality and that reality can quickly get out of control and unleash animal forces that are quite capable of mass rape, the murder of ordinary people and widespread destruction.
And if you do not believe me - take a look at the atrocities on all sides in the current Tigrayan War in Ethiopia or the deaths, barely reported in the mainstream media, that took place in the Congolese Wars or the evidence of our own and French behaviour during decolonisation.
The final chapter of Overy's book is the most cursory but in some ways the most revealing because it shows how the savagery of 1931 to 1945 did not end there but continued out of sight of the 'civilised', perpetrated by precisely those victors who had claimed the moral high ground.
Nuremburg refused to deal with mass terror bombing or US unrestricted submarine warfare in the Pacific. Germany was never obliged to deal with the murderers of women and children in the East. Soviet crimes are self-evident. Dutch behaviour in Indonesia was unconscionable. The list goes on.
Although the story of the Second World War is one we all think we know and there is much that is familiar, there is also much here that will be new to most of us and possibly awkward, supported by references that indicate a man who is in total command of his sources.
Churchill may be regarded as a great war leader from the point of view of the homelander but he was a ruthless imperialist too. Stalin was a brutal leader but his troops were exhausted when they reached the Vistula and it would have been unreasonable to test them further to relieve Warsaw.
The German military was highly effective in its early expansion but lost its edge not simply because of greater material resources on the opposing side but because the Allies learned by doing in the face of challenge in both theatres.
This brings out another, perhaps more positive side of the socially constructed herd, its adaptability under pressure, its ability to learn rapidly and exploit its advantages and an understanding of the behaviours of the other side.
No one has a workable system to win in the casino in the long run and no power can beat the house in the struggle between empires. The house is a matter of resources and control over populations, economics and that ability to construct narratives that enable power to be exercised.
The Axis powers were doomed from the point that the United States decided to fight back and hard and the Nazis failed to push Stalin out of the industrial zones to the East and create the conditions for regime change amongst a discontented population. It was only a matter of time.
But it was also only a matter of time before the triumph of the two new ideological powers unravelled the older empires as well and came into direct conflict. The blindness to this aspect of strategy is perhaps what is most unnerving about Axis and old imperial decision-making.
Perhaps, despite the racism in the East (which had some reasonable origin in foul Japanese behaviour), the terror bombing of Japan and the hypocrisies, the nation that comes out of this best is the US which, for all its flaws, showed an anti-imperialist commitment to be commended.
It can also be honestly said that it was least inclined to oppress its own people to undertake war and least inclined to atrocity. Its later history may have tainted its status as moral arbiter (as did the cowardice of elites towards popular racism) but it was easily the best of a bad bunch.
Given just how evil war is, the act of perpetrating war for whatever reason should be a mark against a nation. Both the US (attacked at Pearl Harbour and with war on it declared by Germany) and the Soviet Union (attacked by Germany, noting its earlier occupations of others) come out best here.
If the Axis empires are the prime aggressors, it has to be said that the British and French Empires escalated things by initiating declarations of war against Germany in 1939. We should fear today that alliances designed for defence may end up with our being dragged into things we may regret.
Complex alliances to maintain the balance of power, neglect of homeland defence and failure to distinguish between wrongful imperial acquisition and legitimate unification of peoples are permitted because elites know that, ultimately, they can guide the herd.
Our entire international system is based on some fundamental conceptual flaws - above all, that borders must be fixed eternally and externally rather than through democratic non-violent self-determination - and those flaws are going to see many small wars and some big ones to come.
And the herd will follow as it always has done and always will, elites will countenance horrible crimes claiming existential necessity and ordinary people will once again become thieves, rapists and killers when they are unleashed on the world. And so it goes ...
January 22, 2024
In one episode of the American television show Hogan’s Heroes, a member of the eponymous sabotage group operating out of a German P.O.W. camp during the Second World War receives a dreaded “Dear John” letter from home. Moping around the barracks because his longtime girlfriend has dumped him for an air raid warden, the others in the camp attempt to offer him solace in his grief. Among them is the rotund German captain of the guards, who consoles the despondent airman with the advice that “Women are like wars. If you wait long enough, another one will come along.”
Whether this is true or not for relationships, the analogy certainly holds for surveys of the Second World War. Barely was the ink dry on the instruments of surrender than publishers began churning out books that sought to encapsulate the entire conflict within the pages of a single volume. These ballooned in size as time went along, as new information became available and our knowledge of events continued to expand. Now, with a market seemingly saturated with piles of tomes about the war, Richard Overy has added his own effort to the mix, which readers are justified in meeting with two questions. First, what does he bring to the effort? And second, how successfully does he incorporate the sheer mass of knowledge we have accumulated about the war into the pages of a single volume?
To the task of accomplishing the latter Overy comes well equipped. As the author of over two dozen books about the conflict, he is already extensively familiar with his subject and the many works written about it. This knowledge is indispensable when it comes to providing a comprehensive account that details not just the campaigns waged by the various participants in Europe and Asia, but their economic mobilization, the civilian experience, and the moral dimensions of the war as well. Often this pushes him beyond the areas of his specialization in the Third Reich and the air war into topics he has not previously covered in such detail. Yet his command of his subject remains assured throughout, and his arguments remain consistently insightful and well-grounded in the enormous literature available.
While such information could easily overwhelm many authors, Overy marshals it masterfully by organizing it to support several key arguments. Foremost among them is the one reflected in the book’s subtitle, which is that the Second World War “was the last imperial war,” in that it was the last war between empires for empire. This might seem obvious to some, but it corrects the longtime commonplace framing of the war as one primarily between nations and peoples. To the extent empire is involved, often it appears in the context of the attempt by the Allied powers of Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and China to resist the efforts of Germany, Italy, and Japan to expand their imperial realms. Such a portrayal, however, glosses over the fact that the Allied powers were empires themselves, with much of the war fought over seizing or defending their respective imperial territories. While other historians have featured this aspect of the conflict in their works, Overy’s is the first to use it to frame the entire war, which expands the scope of his coverage to incorporate a greater range of peoples and events than is the case in most surveys.
Doing so threatens to make his work so massive as to be unmanageable. Yet Overy overcomes this problem by dividing his narrative into two parts. Roughly a third of his book offers a traditional narrative of the war, one that deftly moves between the campaigns on the opposite sides of the Eastern Hemisphere and which helps to illustrate the global perspective he brings to his subject. In some ways, though, this is just an extended prelude to the rest of the book, which adopts a thematic approach to recounting the conflict Over eight chapters, the author offers a comparative examination of the economic, social, and ethical aspects of the fighting, through which he develops his argument about the war being not just one involving state actors, but also communities struggling over different goals whose fighting often overlapped with that of the war itself and which continued long after the Axis powers had surrendered. This approach gives Overy the opportunity to make arguments not always found in other surveys of the war, and provide for a much richer understanding of the conflict as a result.
Inevitably there are quibbles with such a work. Such is the scope of his book that some aspects of the war which may interest readers go unmentioned or are covered only briefly. And while Overy pushes back against the many misconceptions that have developed over time about the war, a few still manage to slip past him. But these issues are trifling when set against the scope of his achievement in providing a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the largest war in human history. Given the market for such works, it is inevitable that others will come along making claims to be “new” or “complete.” Yet it will be a long while before one is published that will measure up to the standard of comprehensiveness and scholarship set by Overy’s work, which lives fully up to the requirements of a modern single-volume study of the Second World War
Whether this is true or not for relationships, the analogy certainly holds for surveys of the Second World War. Barely was the ink dry on the instruments of surrender than publishers began churning out books that sought to encapsulate the entire conflict within the pages of a single volume. These ballooned in size as time went along, as new information became available and our knowledge of events continued to expand. Now, with a market seemingly saturated with piles of tomes about the war, Richard Overy has added his own effort to the mix, which readers are justified in meeting with two questions. First, what does he bring to the effort? And second, how successfully does he incorporate the sheer mass of knowledge we have accumulated about the war into the pages of a single volume?
To the task of accomplishing the latter Overy comes well equipped. As the author of over two dozen books about the conflict, he is already extensively familiar with his subject and the many works written about it. This knowledge is indispensable when it comes to providing a comprehensive account that details not just the campaigns waged by the various participants in Europe and Asia, but their economic mobilization, the civilian experience, and the moral dimensions of the war as well. Often this pushes him beyond the areas of his specialization in the Third Reich and the air war into topics he has not previously covered in such detail. Yet his command of his subject remains assured throughout, and his arguments remain consistently insightful and well-grounded in the enormous literature available.
While such information could easily overwhelm many authors, Overy marshals it masterfully by organizing it to support several key arguments. Foremost among them is the one reflected in the book’s subtitle, which is that the Second World War “was the last imperial war,” in that it was the last war between empires for empire. This might seem obvious to some, but it corrects the longtime commonplace framing of the war as one primarily between nations and peoples. To the extent empire is involved, often it appears in the context of the attempt by the Allied powers of Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and China to resist the efforts of Germany, Italy, and Japan to expand their imperial realms. Such a portrayal, however, glosses over the fact that the Allied powers were empires themselves, with much of the war fought over seizing or defending their respective imperial territories. While other historians have featured this aspect of the conflict in their works, Overy’s is the first to use it to frame the entire war, which expands the scope of his coverage to incorporate a greater range of peoples and events than is the case in most surveys.
Doing so threatens to make his work so massive as to be unmanageable. Yet Overy overcomes this problem by dividing his narrative into two parts. Roughly a third of his book offers a traditional narrative of the war, one that deftly moves between the campaigns on the opposite sides of the Eastern Hemisphere and which helps to illustrate the global perspective he brings to his subject. In some ways, though, this is just an extended prelude to the rest of the book, which adopts a thematic approach to recounting the conflict Over eight chapters, the author offers a comparative examination of the economic, social, and ethical aspects of the fighting, through which he develops his argument about the war being not just one involving state actors, but also communities struggling over different goals whose fighting often overlapped with that of the war itself and which continued long after the Axis powers had surrendered. This approach gives Overy the opportunity to make arguments not always found in other surveys of the war, and provide for a much richer understanding of the conflict as a result.
Inevitably there are quibbles with such a work. Such is the scope of his book that some aspects of the war which may interest readers go unmentioned or are covered only briefly. And while Overy pushes back against the many misconceptions that have developed over time about the war, a few still manage to slip past him. But these issues are trifling when set against the scope of his achievement in providing a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the largest war in human history. Given the market for such works, it is inevitable that others will come along making claims to be “new” or “complete.” Yet it will be a long while before one is published that will measure up to the standard of comprehensiveness and scholarship set by Overy’s work, which lives fully up to the requirements of a modern single-volume study of the Second World War
September 6, 2023
BookTube Prize read. Review in June
This is a long big book that says everything I ever wanted to know about WWII. I did read every page of the text and used the resource pages in the back at times. I learned a lot about why the war happened--a grab for territory according to this author and how it effected the countries in the war both financially, what their resources went into and how the people both fighting and at home were effected by the decisions made by their leaders. There is much about the battles but that is not what this book is about. The Holocaust and Hitler strategies are but a small part of this doorstop of a book.
It was an absolute bear to get through. I set page goals and worked to keep to them. It killed all other reading for 3 weeks but Boy am I glad I took the time and the challenge of it to heart. It gave me a whole new perspective on WWII and an understanding on present day battle for Ukraine. I'm not sure it is a book that is meant for a sit down read straight through but is certainly worth the time for a chapter at a time. Yet the chapters build on one another so begin at the beginning and read at your interest and leisure.
There was a lot of this authors overall theory about the war at the beginning and it is so well supported throughout. Overy has written many books on the subject and I came away with such admiration on how he presented an over arching view of the events that lead to the war, its effects and some of the nations that resulted. I will never think of WWII in the same way after reading this tome. Worth every minute even though I complained through many of them.
This book did not go on in the prize--I was surprised it made it to the 2nd round (24 non-fiction books remaining). I started out with 3 stars but have increased to 4 stars as it has really stayed with me.
This is a long big book that says everything I ever wanted to know about WWII. I did read every page of the text and used the resource pages in the back at times. I learned a lot about why the war happened--a grab for territory according to this author and how it effected the countries in the war both financially, what their resources went into and how the people both fighting and at home were effected by the decisions made by their leaders. There is much about the battles but that is not what this book is about. The Holocaust and Hitler strategies are but a small part of this doorstop of a book.
It was an absolute bear to get through. I set page goals and worked to keep to them. It killed all other reading for 3 weeks but Boy am I glad I took the time and the challenge of it to heart. It gave me a whole new perspective on WWII and an understanding on present day battle for Ukraine. I'm not sure it is a book that is meant for a sit down read straight through but is certainly worth the time for a chapter at a time. Yet the chapters build on one another so begin at the beginning and read at your interest and leisure.
There was a lot of this authors overall theory about the war at the beginning and it is so well supported throughout. Overy has written many books on the subject and I came away with such admiration on how he presented an over arching view of the events that lead to the war, its effects and some of the nations that resulted. I will never think of WWII in the same way after reading this tome. Worth every minute even though I complained through many of them.
This book did not go on in the prize--I was surprised it made it to the 2nd round (24 non-fiction books remaining). I started out with 3 stars but have increased to 4 stars as it has really stayed with me.
October 13, 2021
The subtitle of this book, as shown here, is NOT "a history of the second world war" but "The Great Imperial War 1931-1945", which is why i purchased and read it, as wars by and large are part of Imperial and neo-imperial impulses. Anyway, a fascinating book, all 850 pages. Was a bit reluctant inititially as author is employed by right wing UK university, Exeter, where M15 recruit many of their spooks, but found his analysis suited all my prejudices.
The book is magistrarial....a bit like a full course on WW2. Half of it is concerned with the details of the War, from the Japanese assault on China in 1931, and half with the overall context of the war and the various peace treaties in the aftermath, with the end of Empires, the birth of Israel and America becoming top dog, ensuring those who were part of the resistance in Greece and Yugoslavia, mostly communist led, did not get to sit at the top table when it was all done. Highly recommended - a chapter at a time!!
The book is magistrarial....a bit like a full course on WW2. Half of it is concerned with the details of the War, from the Japanese assault on China in 1931, and half with the overall context of the war and the various peace treaties in the aftermath, with the end of Empires, the birth of Israel and America becoming top dog, ensuring those who were part of the resistance in Greece and Yugoslavia, mostly communist led, did not get to sit at the top table when it was all done. Highly recommended - a chapter at a time!!
Shelved as 'i-get-the-picture'
May 8, 2022I have to say that after reading close to 10% of this, I am disappointed. This book is too large, the material familiar, and almost exclusively based on recent secondary sources (including all the weaknesses of contemporary scholarship — which tends to be more controversial than scientific in its approach. And so it is not worth the enormous time needed to read all 1,000 pages.
The basic premise, that WWII was driven by imperial (rather then ideological) ambitions is insightful and useful, but it is too one-sided to be persuasive. Overy’s The Dictators is *far* better.
The basic premise, that WWII was driven by imperial (rather then ideological) ambitions is insightful and useful, but it is too one-sided to be persuasive. Overy’s The Dictators is *far* better.
April 11, 2023
Overall, an enjoyable and worthwhile history of the Second World War. The statistics, information, and insights on the Second World War that the author gathers sometimes seems overly daunting, but even the most knowledgeable reader will surface with some new understanding. However, it seems that the further he moves from the period of 1939-1945 (ironic considering that his work ostensibly trains its focus on the wider 1931-1945 period), the more out of focus and generalized the analysis becomes. Mr. Overy’s underlying thesis (that, far from being struggles of ideology, the Second World War reflected imperial ambitions of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan to construct empires to rival, rather than dominate, the existing world powers) is intriguing and ambitious. However, he fails to do any serious analysis of the many ways in which the imperial powers (by which he often means Britain and France) exercised control over the various regions and people that he includes in their empires. He also fails to deal with the economic realities and political failures of Britain and France in the 1920s that inexorably limited (and some would say fatally wounded) their colonialist ambitions.
Near the end, he details examples of the crimes and atrocities of the war. It is a tough read. Finally, he flies through the events following the Second World War that produced the world as it is today. Were the old empires simply replaced by new American and Soviet empires? The author says no, though his view that Soviet supremacy of Eastern Europe fail his definition of an empire is not compelling and undercuts the utility of his paradigm. That I was able to note clearly incorrect dates for easily searchable references (not merely just disagreements over the descriptions of events or their relative importance) makes me worried about what else I was missing among the detailed and engaging writing and organizational style of his 1939-1945 narrative.
Near the end, he details examples of the crimes and atrocities of the war. It is a tough read. Finally, he flies through the events following the Second World War that produced the world as it is today. Were the old empires simply replaced by new American and Soviet empires? The author says no, though his view that Soviet supremacy of Eastern Europe fail his definition of an empire is not compelling and undercuts the utility of his paradigm. That I was able to note clearly incorrect dates for easily searchable references (not merely just disagreements over the descriptions of events or their relative importance) makes me worried about what else I was missing among the detailed and engaging writing and organizational style of his 1939-1945 narrative.
October 30, 2021
A very thorough, detailed world history of WWII covering everything from campaigns to economies to moral issues. Not sure I buy the premise that WWII was an Imperial war as the axis sought new territories just like the 19th imperialist empires. International relations changed after WWI even if the British empire (for one) hadn’t yet dissolved. The militarization of the Japanese and German governments, not just their authoritarianism, was something new as, of course, was the eliminationism of the Nazis. There’s a hint of moral equivalence in comparisons between western inequities, especially American racism, and the Holocaust. No society is perfect but there are degrees. . .and those degrees are historically derived.
July 28, 2022
I am so happy to have finished reading this doorstop of a book. It is full of insights and valuable analysis about the origins and aftershocks of WWII, much of which is probably known to students of history but was news to me. The narrative of the war as it's conventionally understood ends with V-J Day--only halfway through the book. In fact, the narrative of the battles that occurred during the war is the least interesting part of the book. There follows a series of examinations of various aspects of the war, such as the war's economic effects, methods of warfare, war crimes, etc. I thought I already knew that "war is hell," but I didn't know the half of it. Now the bad news: This is about the worst-written history book I have read in a long time. What a slog! Complex, nearly incomprehensible sentences. Multi-subject paragraphs with no coherent focus. Convoluted constructions of various kinds. Confusing or nonexistent topic sentences. Et cetera. I feel like I just took a long hike through knee-deep Jello. It was worthwhile, but I'm ecstatic to be done with it.
July 20, 2022
Really excellent read, long - but not at all arduous.
The core thesis of the book is the 'long Second World War' which begins with the Japanese 1931 invasion of Manchuria and Italy's invasion of Libya, and only truly ends with break up of the old European empires in the string of anti-colonial wars which immediately followed the defeat of Germany and Japan.
Thus, the central part of the text is a relatively orthodox military history of the Second World War (with a strong focus on strategic bombing, a specialism of the author), bookended by a rather more political history of 20th century imperialism.
The unique selling point of Blood and Ruins might be its unashamed framing of fascist empire building as absolutely comparable to, and of a kind with, the traditional imperialisms of Britain and France. This is quite a common perspective on the Marxist left, but fairly uncommon in traditional military history.
I would place Richard Overy into a similar camp as a historian like David Edgerton, whose fine grasp of economic and intellectual history places them into a harmonious relationship with more explicitly left wing scholarship, while never straying into the territory of political partisanship.
Highly recommended.
The core thesis of the book is the 'long Second World War' which begins with the Japanese 1931 invasion of Manchuria and Italy's invasion of Libya, and only truly ends with break up of the old European empires in the string of anti-colonial wars which immediately followed the defeat of Germany and Japan.
Thus, the central part of the text is a relatively orthodox military history of the Second World War (with a strong focus on strategic bombing, a specialism of the author), bookended by a rather more political history of 20th century imperialism.
The unique selling point of Blood and Ruins might be its unashamed framing of fascist empire building as absolutely comparable to, and of a kind with, the traditional imperialisms of Britain and France. This is quite a common perspective on the Marxist left, but fairly uncommon in traditional military history.
I would place Richard Overy into a similar camp as a historian like David Edgerton, whose fine grasp of economic and intellectual history places them into a harmonious relationship with more explicitly left wing scholarship, while never straying into the territory of political partisanship.
Highly recommended.
Read
May 10, 2022Richard Overy's new book "refuses to treat the Pacific as 'an appendix,' as histories often do. Rather, it sees World War II as a truly 'global event.'
In that light, one thing becomes clear. Whatever else the Second World War was about, it was, on both sides, a war for empire."
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...
In that light, one thing becomes clear. Whatever else the Second World War was about, it was, on both sides, a war for empire."
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...
June 16, 2022
Slightly disappointed with this book, if I’m being honest (although I should preface this review with my ingrained dislike for modern history!)
I felt this book set out to offer an ambitious re-evaluation of the Second World War, but in the end simply offered a largely similar re-telling of one of the most oversaturated periods of history.
While the author did succeed partially in repainting the war as one of imperial makings, I was less convinced by the dating of 1931 as the starting point for a wider conflict, and also didn’t believe that this was as radical a break from the past as we are led to believe.
A final point on structure: I didn’t particularly like the narrative focus (which were hugely dense chapters) followed by themes, as I felt most of themes had already been discussed at varying lengths in the chronological chapters.
Overall, I’m sure if you enjoy WW2 history or are looking for a good overview of the war, this book might be for you, but alas I was left a little wanting.
I felt this book set out to offer an ambitious re-evaluation of the Second World War, but in the end simply offered a largely similar re-telling of one of the most oversaturated periods of history.
While the author did succeed partially in repainting the war as one of imperial makings, I was less convinced by the dating of 1931 as the starting point for a wider conflict, and also didn’t believe that this was as radical a break from the past as we are led to believe.
A final point on structure: I didn’t particularly like the narrative focus (which were hugely dense chapters) followed by themes, as I felt most of themes had already been discussed at varying lengths in the chronological chapters.
Overall, I’m sure if you enjoy WW2 history or are looking for a good overview of the war, this book might be for you, but alas I was left a little wanting.
April 3, 2023
Expansive and exhaustively researched. It’s crazy to think that even after all of this, I’m sure there’s even more to cover on World War II.
Overy’s thesis is that the shift on imperialism played a significant role before, during and after the war. But he hardly “stays on topic,” what given 1,000 pages of material (granted, roughly 150 of those are notes. :P)
Several of the chapters deal with arming and fighting the war on a very granular level. Sometimes they might support Overy’s thesis on imperialism. Sometimes they seem more in line with the evidence that modern technology changed war and human interactions. It’s too specific, perhaps, to make much by way of broad statements.
Other chapters deal more philosophically with war, and maybe that ties into imperialism. It also ties into other “isms,” hee. Overy researches contemporary understandings of psychology, the economy, propaganda and war-time violence, for starters. The fact that civilians were implicitly or explicitly involved in the effort. Nations had different relationships to these forces not only due to the imperial state, but also their degree of authoritarianism. Japan (fascists from the Axis) and the Soviet Union (communists from the Allies) were both among the both brutal and repressive, with their own people as well as with their enemies.
That’s not to say I don’t agree with his thesis. In a more cut and dry way that plays fast with Overy’s impressive knowledge, World War II started especially because three nations (Germany, Italy and Japan) wanted to enter the empire-building game. They started invading other lands, attempting to colonize. This threatened the allied nations like Britain, France and the USSR who didn’t want more power-hungry, anti-democratic forces to enter the fray. The Allies started the war, with the U.S. entering after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
The war effectively ended Japan and Germany (and Italy’s, though by that point they’d joined the Allies) bids at the sort of empire-building that defined most of world history. But the buck didn’t stop there. Great Britain, the most powerful imperium of the early 20th century, also lost its empire. Perhaps this was a direction humanity had been moving in for awhile, starting with World War I, where the powerful, centuries-old Ottoman Empire died out. Perhaps the world was now too small, and with the Allies creating the United Nations and espousing democracy (how well the USSR, the US and Britain practiced democracy is another matter) made nationalism more trenchant. Overy certainly focuses on the economics—Britain’s was in shambles, and after fighting the Axis powers they’d lost the means to respond to uprisings in their occupied lands.
But into this power vacuum, something new entered the game: the Cold War between the two surviving most powerful players: the U.S. and the USSR. Despite our continued influence in other areas of the globe, Overy argues that this capitalist and communist overreach isn’t the same as the traditional empires of yore. It’s more about influence than physical occupation, and many other peoples embraced said capitalism or communism (in variations.)
A fascinating and distressing book. In the name of “justified warfare,” (and indeed all major players felt justified, claiming their enemies wanted to wipe them out and the like,) World War II contained so much barbarism. Overy’s viewpoint was so expansive that he was largely detached when describing the killings, tortures, rapes and displacements. He took care to talk specifically about the ethnic factions battling and harming each other, as well as the attempted genocide that was the Holocaust.
Overy seemed to be making a case about Hitler, and Germany’s, fantastical antisemitic delusions being the spark needed to speed up their attempt at empire-building. “Hitler, like Himmler and Eichmann, could not in the end envisage either a territorial empire in the East, nor a larger Grossraum, as an area inhabited by millions of Jews,” Overy wrote. Although the Axis ambitions ended in failure, it was “not before the violent empire-building engulfed Eurasia and its fringes in programmes of deportation, dispossession and murder narrowly concentrated in time, in contrast to the history of earlier empire-building, even its genocidal aspects, which was spread over decades or even longer.” Instead, the Nazis murdered or displaced most of European Jewry in under a decade.
Again, the scope of the war and the genocide could also be argued on modern grounds of technological advances. But I think this speaks to the reality that WWII, epic in scope, can’t be understood in one 1,000-page book. Indeed, reading this alongside THE ESCAPE ARTIST about Auschwitz, I was struck about details Overy left out (ironic, I know, since in essence he included scores more about the war than Freedland did. But, different books, different aims.) Still, I couldn’t ask for more. I probably couldn’t remember more. :P
The dry historical writing is likely belied by the dramatic subject matter. Still, there’s enough granular detail in here that I don’t think it would be accessible to most readers, especially at this page length. For my own biases, I’d probably learn more by taking apart the history and learning about it more piece-meal. But there’s no way not to be daunted by Overy’s achievement. Quite the magnum opus!
Overy’s thesis is that the shift on imperialism played a significant role before, during and after the war. But he hardly “stays on topic,” what given 1,000 pages of material (granted, roughly 150 of those are notes. :P)
Several of the chapters deal with arming and fighting the war on a very granular level. Sometimes they might support Overy’s thesis on imperialism. Sometimes they seem more in line with the evidence that modern technology changed war and human interactions. It’s too specific, perhaps, to make much by way of broad statements.
Other chapters deal more philosophically with war, and maybe that ties into imperialism. It also ties into other “isms,” hee. Overy researches contemporary understandings of psychology, the economy, propaganda and war-time violence, for starters. The fact that civilians were implicitly or explicitly involved in the effort. Nations had different relationships to these forces not only due to the imperial state, but also their degree of authoritarianism. Japan (fascists from the Axis) and the Soviet Union (communists from the Allies) were both among the both brutal and repressive, with their own people as well as with their enemies.
That’s not to say I don’t agree with his thesis. In a more cut and dry way that plays fast with Overy’s impressive knowledge, World War II started especially because three nations (Germany, Italy and Japan) wanted to enter the empire-building game. They started invading other lands, attempting to colonize. This threatened the allied nations like Britain, France and the USSR who didn’t want more power-hungry, anti-democratic forces to enter the fray. The Allies started the war, with the U.S. entering after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
The war effectively ended Japan and Germany (and Italy’s, though by that point they’d joined the Allies) bids at the sort of empire-building that defined most of world history. But the buck didn’t stop there. Great Britain, the most powerful imperium of the early 20th century, also lost its empire. Perhaps this was a direction humanity had been moving in for awhile, starting with World War I, where the powerful, centuries-old Ottoman Empire died out. Perhaps the world was now too small, and with the Allies creating the United Nations and espousing democracy (how well the USSR, the US and Britain practiced democracy is another matter) made nationalism more trenchant. Overy certainly focuses on the economics—Britain’s was in shambles, and after fighting the Axis powers they’d lost the means to respond to uprisings in their occupied lands.
But into this power vacuum, something new entered the game: the Cold War between the two surviving most powerful players: the U.S. and the USSR. Despite our continued influence in other areas of the globe, Overy argues that this capitalist and communist overreach isn’t the same as the traditional empires of yore. It’s more about influence than physical occupation, and many other peoples embraced said capitalism or communism (in variations.)
A fascinating and distressing book. In the name of “justified warfare,” (and indeed all major players felt justified, claiming their enemies wanted to wipe them out and the like,) World War II contained so much barbarism. Overy’s viewpoint was so expansive that he was largely detached when describing the killings, tortures, rapes and displacements. He took care to talk specifically about the ethnic factions battling and harming each other, as well as the attempted genocide that was the Holocaust.
Overy seemed to be making a case about Hitler, and Germany’s, fantastical antisemitic delusions being the spark needed to speed up their attempt at empire-building. “Hitler, like Himmler and Eichmann, could not in the end envisage either a territorial empire in the East, nor a larger Grossraum, as an area inhabited by millions of Jews,” Overy wrote. Although the Axis ambitions ended in failure, it was “not before the violent empire-building engulfed Eurasia and its fringes in programmes of deportation, dispossession and murder narrowly concentrated in time, in contrast to the history of earlier empire-building, even its genocidal aspects, which was spread over decades or even longer.” Instead, the Nazis murdered or displaced most of European Jewry in under a decade.
Again, the scope of the war and the genocide could also be argued on modern grounds of technological advances. But I think this speaks to the reality that WWII, epic in scope, can’t be understood in one 1,000-page book. Indeed, reading this alongside THE ESCAPE ARTIST about Auschwitz, I was struck about details Overy left out (ironic, I know, since in essence he included scores more about the war than Freedland did. But, different books, different aims.) Still, I couldn’t ask for more. I probably couldn’t remember more. :P
The dry historical writing is likely belied by the dramatic subject matter. Still, there’s enough granular detail in here that I don’t think it would be accessible to most readers, especially at this page length. For my own biases, I’d probably learn more by taking apart the history and learning about it more piece-meal. But there’s no way not to be daunted by Overy’s achievement. Quite the magnum opus!
June 15, 2023
I found this on the discount shelf at Barnes & Noble two months ago. I broke down and bought it to read. It's a long, but fascinating read, as Overy lays out his case that World War II was the last of the imperial wars going back to the 16th Century. (He also says World War II began with Japan's invasion of Manchuria in late 1931, rather than Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939.) It's a long and detailed book on how the colonial have nots (Japan, Italy, and Germany) sought to have empires to rival those of the haves (Great Britain and France, and to a lesser extent the Netherlands and Belgium). The ideologies, grand strategies, and economics of the major combatants are examined. It doesn't shy away from the atrocities committed in both creating these empires and fighting them. Finally, the reverberations of the war towards the present day are covered. This can be a hard read, but the reader is rewarded with a new and interesting interpretation of World War II by a master historian. Recommended reading for 20th Century history enthusiasts.
June 4, 2022
A wide-angle view of World War II -- and a preview of how future historians are likely to see it. No sentimentality here about the "good war" (which was the deadliest and most destructive conflict in history).
Framing the war as imperial competition is both illuminating and useful. Because it was Axis imperial overreach that gave the Allies their lever to victory. Without Operation Barbarossa, it's hard to see how there could have been a D-Day. And if Japan had not thrown men and resources into an invasion of China for 10 years before Pearl Harbor, their forces would have been much stronger and harder to defeat (which is why the author begins the book in 1931, when Japan invaded Manchuria).
The Great Depression brought war-mongering leaders to power in Germany and Japan. But imperial fantasy fueled their fighting. At the time, Britain and France had world-spanning empires, which they exploited with ruthless (though whitewashed) efficiency. Germany, Japan, and Italy were late to the imperial game -- and their resentment was heightened in 1919, when the Treaty of Versailles denied them their "rightful" share of territory. The blockades Germany experienced during World War I also showed countries what they could face if they didn't have adequate resources to draw on.
The romantic haze that has settled over the war is apt to mislead us. It's important to remember that saving the Jews of Europe was never an objective of the war (in fact, the Allies kept many from escaping Nazism by refusing them entry to less toxic countries). Nor was defending democracy (the Soviet Union was not democratic; India and Indochina did not elect Britain and France as their colonial overlords). The Allies' relentless bombing of German and Japanese civilians would have been remembered as a war atrocity -- if not for the far more extensive and horrific atrocities committed by their enemies.
The Second World War erupted in an era of western racist assumptions and casual cruelty toward people viewed as "lesser." The better side eventually won, and we're lucky they did. But power competition continued, of course, now contorted by nuclear weapons.
Framing the war as imperial competition is both illuminating and useful. Because it was Axis imperial overreach that gave the Allies their lever to victory. Without Operation Barbarossa, it's hard to see how there could have been a D-Day. And if Japan had not thrown men and resources into an invasion of China for 10 years before Pearl Harbor, their forces would have been much stronger and harder to defeat (which is why the author begins the book in 1931, when Japan invaded Manchuria).
The Great Depression brought war-mongering leaders to power in Germany and Japan. But imperial fantasy fueled their fighting. At the time, Britain and France had world-spanning empires, which they exploited with ruthless (though whitewashed) efficiency. Germany, Japan, and Italy were late to the imperial game -- and their resentment was heightened in 1919, when the Treaty of Versailles denied them their "rightful" share of territory. The blockades Germany experienced during World War I also showed countries what they could face if they didn't have adequate resources to draw on.
The romantic haze that has settled over the war is apt to mislead us. It's important to remember that saving the Jews of Europe was never an objective of the war (in fact, the Allies kept many from escaping Nazism by refusing them entry to less toxic countries). Nor was defending democracy (the Soviet Union was not democratic; India and Indochina did not elect Britain and France as their colonial overlords). The Allies' relentless bombing of German and Japanese civilians would have been remembered as a war atrocity -- if not for the far more extensive and horrific atrocities committed by their enemies.
The Second World War erupted in an era of western racist assumptions and casual cruelty toward people viewed as "lesser." The better side eventually won, and we're lucky they did. But power competition continued, of course, now contorted by nuclear weapons.
May 22, 2022
The Second World War was the most transformative event in human history, bringing changes in territory, weaponry, gender, race, religion, dress, education---the list never ends. This is what makes this book unique. Overy devotes less a third of his nearly 1,000 closely-written pages to the military conflict and the rest to issues too long overlooked, such as how both Allies and Axis organized civilian morale and, for the Western powers, reconciling a war for democracy with the preservation of empire. The author correctly notes that, as imperialist war, World War II really began in 1931 with Japan's invasion of China and ended circa 1960 when most, though not all, former European colonies In Africa and Asia earned their independence.
April 26, 2023
This an unconventional history of WWII... exhaustive in its coverage, and often exhausting in the reading experience. There is not much new or revelatory to be had – the book is essentially a comprehensive overview that eschews more detailed, ground-level narratives. Some of it is quite useful – for example, Overy clarifies the near fanatical resistance prevalent among German and Japanese forces and civilian populations even after the outcome of the war was unmistakably ordained – they were fighting an existential war, one in which losing would result in the loss of their nation, their culture, their history, especially given the unyielding Allied demand for unconditional surrender. He contrasts this with the growing war fatigue that set in among Allied forces and populations. On the Allied side, the war had becoming an endless and increasing loss of life, personal sacrifice, and fatigue – spurring a rising desire to end it... easily understood because they weren’t looking at extinction. They were winning. War production was slowly shifting back to civilian needs. Front line veterans were being accommodated based on time of service and sent home. It clarifies so many of the dilemmas affecting strategic and tactical choices as the war progressed, and especially from roughly 1943 on. As with so much of this book this insight has been more thoroughly explored elsewhere – vital understanding to the choices made in 1944 and 1945... there is considerable doubt how long the Allies could have continued the total war fight, not for lack of resources or manpower, but for increased lack of popular will.
That is but one example of the author’s method, drawing on previous work and condensing it into an expansive, comprehensive overview. Sometimes it is good, sometimes it is not. Overy’s predicate thesis that WWII was the bloody finale of imperialism is interesting, even obvious, but not particularly compelling on its own as an explanation. He argues at length, and repeatedly, that imperialistic expansion was the motivation for Germany, Japan and Italy as well as for the Allies in resisting them. But it isn’t enough – he passes over more compelling causative factors. The Treaty of Versailles, 1919, set the stage for WWII as well as virtually all of the geopolitical ills of the 20th Century. Germany was crushingly humiliated, as were Japan (then an ally who had fought on our side) and Italy, to a somewhat lesser extent. National interests, and national survival were more compelling incentives and had more immediate and urgent effects.
Hitler’s uniquely race based nationalism drove more of his strategies and plans than did imperial interests. His singular focus on racial purity ultimately impeded the German war effort, exacerbated by his singular dictatorial megalomaniacal control over all aspects of the military and the war. Hitler was the indispensable figure without whom the war probably would not have happened, and certainly would have had an entirely different character.
Italy had imperial pretensions, envisioning a restoration of the grandeurs of Rome, but complicated by the nature of its governmental system – a king, a council and a would-be dictator who assumed dictatorial powers but was nevertheless somewhat shackled by the very nature of his nation and its governmental organism. Mussolini never had power and control approaching that wielded by Hitler.
Japan was another fractured governmental system – a divine Emperor, a civilian government and ministers of the Army and the Navy independent of the civilian institutions as well as each other, exacerbated by disobedient military units that simply pursued their own policies. The invasion of Manchuria in 1931, which the author rightly views as the kick-off to WWII, was engineered by the Army command then stationed in china, independently of the actual government in Tokyo. Overy ignores the impetus for war provided by US policies, notably prohibiting steel and oil resources that Japan desperately needed and relied upon. He also faults the League of Nations for not taking action, but fails to explain exactly what the League could do – it was notably weak and poorly equipped to accomplish anything except provide a forum for expressing disapproval – which it did. Forging corrective policies that can actually be enforced was impossible for it – and emblematic of the reasons the League failed, ultimately replaced by the United Nations that is no more effective or viable than was the League. Bemoaning League inaction is virtue signaling.
The book is too long and too wide-ranging to continue rehashing strengths and weaknesses here – suffice to say that reading it is a slog. The author favors long complex sentences, and longer complex paragraphs, lots of numbers – production figures, inventories of casualties and materiel and resources applied in cited events and battles to support his basic thesis that imperial motivations led to vast blood and ruins. Well, yes they did – but it’s an effort to get through it all. I would liken it to reading an encyclopedia... couple sections on impe3rial incentives and intentions, a chronology of the war, sections on logistics and production, casualties and losses, etc. Comprehensive, but not exactly cutting edge, and not an easy reading experience.
That is but one example of the author’s method, drawing on previous work and condensing it into an expansive, comprehensive overview. Sometimes it is good, sometimes it is not. Overy’s predicate thesis that WWII was the bloody finale of imperialism is interesting, even obvious, but not particularly compelling on its own as an explanation. He argues at length, and repeatedly, that imperialistic expansion was the motivation for Germany, Japan and Italy as well as for the Allies in resisting them. But it isn’t enough – he passes over more compelling causative factors. The Treaty of Versailles, 1919, set the stage for WWII as well as virtually all of the geopolitical ills of the 20th Century. Germany was crushingly humiliated, as were Japan (then an ally who had fought on our side) and Italy, to a somewhat lesser extent. National interests, and national survival were more compelling incentives and had more immediate and urgent effects.
Hitler’s uniquely race based nationalism drove more of his strategies and plans than did imperial interests. His singular focus on racial purity ultimately impeded the German war effort, exacerbated by his singular dictatorial megalomaniacal control over all aspects of the military and the war. Hitler was the indispensable figure without whom the war probably would not have happened, and certainly would have had an entirely different character.
Italy had imperial pretensions, envisioning a restoration of the grandeurs of Rome, but complicated by the nature of its governmental system – a king, a council and a would-be dictator who assumed dictatorial powers but was nevertheless somewhat shackled by the very nature of his nation and its governmental organism. Mussolini never had power and control approaching that wielded by Hitler.
Japan was another fractured governmental system – a divine Emperor, a civilian government and ministers of the Army and the Navy independent of the civilian institutions as well as each other, exacerbated by disobedient military units that simply pursued their own policies. The invasion of Manchuria in 1931, which the author rightly views as the kick-off to WWII, was engineered by the Army command then stationed in china, independently of the actual government in Tokyo. Overy ignores the impetus for war provided by US policies, notably prohibiting steel and oil resources that Japan desperately needed and relied upon. He also faults the League of Nations for not taking action, but fails to explain exactly what the League could do – it was notably weak and poorly equipped to accomplish anything except provide a forum for expressing disapproval – which it did. Forging corrective policies that can actually be enforced was impossible for it – and emblematic of the reasons the League failed, ultimately replaced by the United Nations that is no more effective or viable than was the League. Bemoaning League inaction is virtue signaling.
The book is too long and too wide-ranging to continue rehashing strengths and weaknesses here – suffice to say that reading it is a slog. The author favors long complex sentences, and longer complex paragraphs, lots of numbers – production figures, inventories of casualties and materiel and resources applied in cited events and battles to support his basic thesis that imperial motivations led to vast blood and ruins. Well, yes they did – but it’s an effort to get through it all. I would liken it to reading an encyclopedia... couple sections on impe3rial incentives and intentions, a chronology of the war, sections on logistics and production, casualties and losses, etc. Comprehensive, but not exactly cutting edge, and not an easy reading experience.
April 30, 2024
Very informative and thought provoking, but long.
October 8, 2023
If interest in WWII during your 20s can be diagnosed as early-onset republicanism, this book provides the cure to that specific ailment
4.8/5
4.8/5
Read
May 6, 2023BookTube prize book
February 19, 2023
Took my time with this one. I liked the sections on the home front, etc. Look to pick this up as a hard copy for your library.
War is based on four main assumptions. First, that the conventional chronology of the war is no longer useful.
Both can be seen as stages of a second Thirty Years War about the reordering of the world system in a final stage of imperial crisis.
The war between Spain and the United States in 1898–99 was not intended as a war for empire, but Spanish defeat left America in temporary possession of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam and a number of small islands in the Pacific.
There is a good case, and one not usually argued, for saying that Italian hubris in North Africa was more properly the trigger that unleashed the Great War.
In 1924–5 a major Empire Exhibition was mounted at Wembley in London, attracting 27 million visitors to a 216-acre site, where ‘races in residence’ were housed in the exhibition grounds to be stared at like animals in a zoo.[ 53]
Germans who married Czechs lost their right to citizenship, encouraging a racial apartheid in the protectorate. Citizens and subjects were treated by two different legal regimes: citizens subject to Reich laws, Czechs to the ordinances and decrees enforced by the viceroy. Czech resistance was crushed savagely with the same lack of restraint practised by Italy in Ethiopia or Japan in China.[ 94]
It is important to remember that Britain and France, though leaders of the League system and, until the mid-1930s, the most heavily armed of the major powers, were not like the United States in the 1990s: they were relatively declining powers, with large obligations worldwide, critical electorates unwilling to endorse war easily, and economies recovering from the effects of the depression in which the decision to divert resources to large-scale military spending had to be balanced against the social needs and economic expectations of democratic populations.
The experience of the Great War clearly coloured Allied thinking about how best to wage a new one. In November, ‘making full use of the experience gained in the years 1914–1918’, the Allies announced that they would co-ordinate communications, munitions, oil supply, food, shipping and economic warfare against Germany.[ 184]
Although Japanese soldiers and officials certainly regarded the Japanese race as superior, and had a particular loathing for the Chinese, the ideology of empire was aimed at the idea of Asian ‘brotherhood’, with Japan very much the older brother. In Europe, and in Germany in particular, the structure of the new order was racially based, with ‘Germans’ or ‘Italians’ at the apex of a hierarchical empire that condemned millions of the new subject peoples to displacement, starvation and mass murder.
The revolt against British strategy was only ended when Roosevelt, for whom the Atlantic commitment had always been more important, finally ordered Marshall on 25 July to abandon an invasion of Europe and prepare for ‘Gymnast’ (now renamed ‘Torch’), so that American forces would be in action before the end of the year–if possible, before the mid-term Congressional elections in November. July 1942 was the only time that Roosevelt invoked his formal role as commander-in-chief, signing under that title, in order to compel his military staff to obey him. Eisenhower, architect of the ‘Sledgehammer’ plan, thought the decision would be ‘the blackest day in history’.
The replacement system in the American army, which by now was mobilizing boys of eighteen to meet the urgent and unanticipated need for more soldiers, simply fed infantry one at a time into a depleted unit, with no companions or effective preparation, and they took correspondingly high casualties alongside veterans who were keen to survive at their expense.[ 288]
Those who actually saw combat were always a fraction. The rest of military society was made up of clerks, storemen, labourers, engineers, logistic personnel, signals and radio services, intelligence organizations, maintenance staff, archivists and record keepers, medical and veterinary services, food supply and preparation, the pay corps, and so on.
Out of 86,000 tanks produced in the Soviet Union, 83,500 were lost or damaged and only the rapid recovery and repair of vehicles made it possible to sustain mechanized warfare at all.
But Western leaders turned a blind eye, at least in public, to the record of Soviet aggression between 1939 and 1941 and to Soviet political repression at home and abroad because the central moral imperative shared by all three was the defeat of Germany.
The last letters sent by German soldiers from Stalingrad were never read by their families or friends. The German army was ordered to confiscate the final seven sacks of mail flown out of the Stalingrad pocket so that some assessment could be made of the state of morale of the doomed soldiers. The result was not quite what was hoped for. An analysis of the letters showed that only 2.1 per cent approved the conduct of the war, while 37.4 per cent appeared doubtful or indifferent, and 60.5 per cent were sceptical, negative or unequivocally opposed.
Bombed civilians could also cope fatalistically with their fear, either through the belief that a bomb ‘with your name on it’ was unavoidable, or through a psychological coping mechanism described by one psychiatrist as an ‘invulnerability state’, during which individuals took irrational risks because they attributed their personal survival to supernatural agency.
Two Japanese soldiers became overnight celebrities in Japan as news was relayed about a competition to see which of them could cut off 100 Chinese heads first; the ‘Hundred man killing contest’ carried on into 1938, and by March one of the lieutenants had beheaded 374 men. Poems, songs, even children’s books celebrated the ‘Patriotic Hundred-Man Killings’.[ 17] Everywhere, Chinese soldiers were hunted down and slaughtered using a variety of cruel forms of execution–prisoners hanged by the tongue, buried alive, burnt alive, used for bayonet practice, dropped naked into holes in the winter ice to ‘go fishing’.[ 18] One Japanese soldier passed by a group of 2,000 dead and mutilated Chinese in Nanjing who had surrendered with a white flag. They were, he noted, ‘killed in all different kinds of ways’ and left to rot on the road.[ 19] The unrestrained violence stemmed from the decision by the Japanese military to define Chinese soldiers as bandits, removing any legal barrier to their murder when they were caught. The Geneva Convention on prisoners had not been ratified by the Japanese government, but even if it had been, the limits imposed by international law enshrined in the Geneva agreements were not communicated even to senior Japanese commanders.
United Nations Organization, for all the criticism then and now of its capacity to ensure peace and promote human rights, symbolized in a very palpable form the shift from a world of global empires to a world of nation states.
War is based on four main assumptions. First, that the conventional chronology of the war is no longer useful.
Both can be seen as stages of a second Thirty Years War about the reordering of the world system in a final stage of imperial crisis.
The war between Spain and the United States in 1898–99 was not intended as a war for empire, but Spanish defeat left America in temporary possession of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam and a number of small islands in the Pacific.
There is a good case, and one not usually argued, for saying that Italian hubris in North Africa was more properly the trigger that unleashed the Great War.
In 1924–5 a major Empire Exhibition was mounted at Wembley in London, attracting 27 million visitors to a 216-acre site, where ‘races in residence’ were housed in the exhibition grounds to be stared at like animals in a zoo.[ 53]
Germans who married Czechs lost their right to citizenship, encouraging a racial apartheid in the protectorate. Citizens and subjects were treated by two different legal regimes: citizens subject to Reich laws, Czechs to the ordinances and decrees enforced by the viceroy. Czech resistance was crushed savagely with the same lack of restraint practised by Italy in Ethiopia or Japan in China.[ 94]
It is important to remember that Britain and France, though leaders of the League system and, until the mid-1930s, the most heavily armed of the major powers, were not like the United States in the 1990s: they were relatively declining powers, with large obligations worldwide, critical electorates unwilling to endorse war easily, and economies recovering from the effects of the depression in which the decision to divert resources to large-scale military spending had to be balanced against the social needs and economic expectations of democratic populations.
The experience of the Great War clearly coloured Allied thinking about how best to wage a new one. In November, ‘making full use of the experience gained in the years 1914–1918’, the Allies announced that they would co-ordinate communications, munitions, oil supply, food, shipping and economic warfare against Germany.[ 184]
Although Japanese soldiers and officials certainly regarded the Japanese race as superior, and had a particular loathing for the Chinese, the ideology of empire was aimed at the idea of Asian ‘brotherhood’, with Japan very much the older brother. In Europe, and in Germany in particular, the structure of the new order was racially based, with ‘Germans’ or ‘Italians’ at the apex of a hierarchical empire that condemned millions of the new subject peoples to displacement, starvation and mass murder.
The revolt against British strategy was only ended when Roosevelt, for whom the Atlantic commitment had always been more important, finally ordered Marshall on 25 July to abandon an invasion of Europe and prepare for ‘Gymnast’ (now renamed ‘Torch’), so that American forces would be in action before the end of the year–if possible, before the mid-term Congressional elections in November. July 1942 was the only time that Roosevelt invoked his formal role as commander-in-chief, signing under that title, in order to compel his military staff to obey him. Eisenhower, architect of the ‘Sledgehammer’ plan, thought the decision would be ‘the blackest day in history’.
The replacement system in the American army, which by now was mobilizing boys of eighteen to meet the urgent and unanticipated need for more soldiers, simply fed infantry one at a time into a depleted unit, with no companions or effective preparation, and they took correspondingly high casualties alongside veterans who were keen to survive at their expense.[ 288]
Those who actually saw combat were always a fraction. The rest of military society was made up of clerks, storemen, labourers, engineers, logistic personnel, signals and radio services, intelligence organizations, maintenance staff, archivists and record keepers, medical and veterinary services, food supply and preparation, the pay corps, and so on.
Out of 86,000 tanks produced in the Soviet Union, 83,500 were lost or damaged and only the rapid recovery and repair of vehicles made it possible to sustain mechanized warfare at all.
But Western leaders turned a blind eye, at least in public, to the record of Soviet aggression between 1939 and 1941 and to Soviet political repression at home and abroad because the central moral imperative shared by all three was the defeat of Germany.
The last letters sent by German soldiers from Stalingrad were never read by their families or friends. The German army was ordered to confiscate the final seven sacks of mail flown out of the Stalingrad pocket so that some assessment could be made of the state of morale of the doomed soldiers. The result was not quite what was hoped for. An analysis of the letters showed that only 2.1 per cent approved the conduct of the war, while 37.4 per cent appeared doubtful or indifferent, and 60.5 per cent were sceptical, negative or unequivocally opposed.
Bombed civilians could also cope fatalistically with their fear, either through the belief that a bomb ‘with your name on it’ was unavoidable, or through a psychological coping mechanism described by one psychiatrist as an ‘invulnerability state’, during which individuals took irrational risks because they attributed their personal survival to supernatural agency.
Two Japanese soldiers became overnight celebrities in Japan as news was relayed about a competition to see which of them could cut off 100 Chinese heads first; the ‘Hundred man killing contest’ carried on into 1938, and by March one of the lieutenants had beheaded 374 men. Poems, songs, even children’s books celebrated the ‘Patriotic Hundred-Man Killings’.[ 17] Everywhere, Chinese soldiers were hunted down and slaughtered using a variety of cruel forms of execution–prisoners hanged by the tongue, buried alive, burnt alive, used for bayonet practice, dropped naked into holes in the winter ice to ‘go fishing’.[ 18] One Japanese soldier passed by a group of 2,000 dead and mutilated Chinese in Nanjing who had surrendered with a white flag. They were, he noted, ‘killed in all different kinds of ways’ and left to rot on the road.[ 19] The unrestrained violence stemmed from the decision by the Japanese military to define Chinese soldiers as bandits, removing any legal barrier to their murder when they were caught. The Geneva Convention on prisoners had not been ratified by the Japanese government, but even if it had been, the limits imposed by international law enshrined in the Geneva agreements were not communicated even to senior Japanese commanders.
United Nations Organization, for all the criticism then and now of its capacity to ensure peace and promote human rights, symbolized in a very palpable form the shift from a world of global empires to a world of nation states.
May 4, 2022
Richard Overy analyses the events of world war two using the prism of an imperialistic war launched by the three totalitarian states, Japan, Germany and Italy in the thirties. His book is constructed in a thematic way, each chapter covering different aspects of this war. This is a fresh approach which provides us with a better understanding of the motivations and justifications behind the agressive nature of the foreign policy as conducted by these states. This is the kind of book that an author will produce after a prolific career covering these events; fact finding and narration is no longer the main function of the book as it is making the reader rethink these events with a different perspective. I believe that he has attained his goal; many times I stopped reading and reflected on the ideas that the author had just presented. I strongly suggest to read this book only after you have become acquainted with the subjects covered because it would be providing in depth analysis before you may have grasped all the relevant facts. It is not an easy read, it is very dense with information that takes a while to digest. Stimulating and demanding, worth the effort.
May 14, 2022
This looks at WWII from a global perspective, and the author believes it was an imperial war. Overy assumes you have a basic understanding of the chronology of the war. He looks at the totality of the war with chapters on fighting, economics, civilians, crimes & atrocities, and the emotional cost.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to begin to understand WWII.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to begin to understand WWII.
November 6, 2021
Wow - what a hard act for any historian to follow... a thoroughly absorbing and often harrowing account that offers an independent and sometimes troubling perspective of the cataclysmic global events of the period.
April 10, 2024
Richard Overy's "Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931-1945" is a monumental work that redefines our understanding of the Second World War. This comprehensive study delves into the complexities of the conflict, offering a global perspective that challenges conventional narratives. Overy's expertise in the field shines through in his detailed analysis of the war's multifaceted dimensions, including diplomacy, economics, battlefield tactics, and war crimes.
"Blood and Ruins" is not a conventional chronological account of World War II but rather an expansive analysis that situates the conflict within the broader context of imperial ambition and collapse. Overy argues that the war was the violent culmination of a century-long era of global imperial expansion, driven by the territorial ambitions of Italy, Germany, and Japan. The book covers the war's vast scope, from the geopolitical and geostrategic elements to the pivotal battles and the transformation of the global order in its aftermath.
While "Blood and Ruins" does not focus on individual characters in the traditional sense, it provides deep insights into the nations and leaders involved in the conflict. Overy's analysis portrays these entities as characters in their own right, with their ambitions, strategies, and flaws. The book examines the contrasting motivations and actions of the Axis powers—driven by imperial ambitions—and their adversaries, who sought to defend the existing global order.
One of the central themes of "Blood and Ruins" is the concept of the "great imperial war." Overy meticulously demonstrates how the war was a clash of empires, with the Axis powers' expansionist goals pitted against the Allies' defense of the status quo. The book also explores the profound human cost of the conflict, highlighting the extensive suffering and atrocities committed on all sides. Another recurring motif is the transformation of warfare, with Overy discussing the blurring lines between civilian and military targets and the technological advancements that shaped the conflict.
Overy's writing style is both scholarly and accessible, making "Blood and Ruins" a compelling read for both experts and general readers. His ability to synthesize a vast array of sources and data into a coherent narrative is remarkable. The book is praised for its clarity, depth, and the way it challenges readers to reconsider their understanding of World War II. Overy's use of personal accounts and statistics brings the war's immense scale and human impact to life, providing a vivid and engaging reading experience.
"Blood and Ruins" is a masterful work that stands as a testament to Richard Overy's stature as one of the foremost historians of the Second World War. The book's comprehensive scope, insightful analysis, and original perspective make it an essential addition to the literature on the conflict. It not only deepens our understanding of World War II but also prompts reflection on the nature of war and the enduring impact of imperial ambitions. "Blood and Ruins" is highly recommended for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of one of history's most devastating and transformative events.
"Blood and Ruins" is not a conventional chronological account of World War II but rather an expansive analysis that situates the conflict within the broader context of imperial ambition and collapse. Overy argues that the war was the violent culmination of a century-long era of global imperial expansion, driven by the territorial ambitions of Italy, Germany, and Japan. The book covers the war's vast scope, from the geopolitical and geostrategic elements to the pivotal battles and the transformation of the global order in its aftermath.
While "Blood and Ruins" does not focus on individual characters in the traditional sense, it provides deep insights into the nations and leaders involved in the conflict. Overy's analysis portrays these entities as characters in their own right, with their ambitions, strategies, and flaws. The book examines the contrasting motivations and actions of the Axis powers—driven by imperial ambitions—and their adversaries, who sought to defend the existing global order.
One of the central themes of "Blood and Ruins" is the concept of the "great imperial war." Overy meticulously demonstrates how the war was a clash of empires, with the Axis powers' expansionist goals pitted against the Allies' defense of the status quo. The book also explores the profound human cost of the conflict, highlighting the extensive suffering and atrocities committed on all sides. Another recurring motif is the transformation of warfare, with Overy discussing the blurring lines between civilian and military targets and the technological advancements that shaped the conflict.
Overy's writing style is both scholarly and accessible, making "Blood and Ruins" a compelling read for both experts and general readers. His ability to synthesize a vast array of sources and data into a coherent narrative is remarkable. The book is praised for its clarity, depth, and the way it challenges readers to reconsider their understanding of World War II. Overy's use of personal accounts and statistics brings the war's immense scale and human impact to life, providing a vivid and engaging reading experience.
"Blood and Ruins" is a masterful work that stands as a testament to Richard Overy's stature as one of the foremost historians of the Second World War. The book's comprehensive scope, insightful analysis, and original perspective make it an essential addition to the literature on the conflict. It not only deepens our understanding of World War II but also prompts reflection on the nature of war and the enduring impact of imperial ambitions. "Blood and Ruins" is highly recommended for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of one of history's most devastating and transformative events.
August 25, 2022
Em busca de novas perspetivas sobre a II Guerra Mundial, este livro inicia com a tese do conflito como uma última guerra colonial, focado no esforço de três nações - Alemanha, Itália e Japão. Nações perdedoras nas corridas colonialistas do final do século XIX, teriam usado a II Guerra como forma de conquistar espaços coloniais que acreditavam ser-lhes tão devidos quanto os das nações com impérios coloniais já estabelecidos. E, no fim do processo, não só perderam a guerra como levaram ao derrocar da ideia de colonialismo.
É uma tese curiosa, que amplifica os conceitos de lebensraum a leste alemão, de conquistas de prestigio num renovado império romano italiano, ou a postura agressiva japonesa de, sabendo que era considerado um povo inferior pelos ocidentais, não se deixar colonizar através da construção do seu próprio império. Mas o livro depressa avança por campos mais conhecidos, tornando-se uma verdadeira história da II Guerra. Uma que nos apresenta as principais tendências e vertentes, refletindo a enorme complexidade deste conflito, cuja história não parece esgotar-se.
Overy olha para os teatros de operação militar, para as grandes movimentações e batalhas, para os momentos de desespero. Mas também olha para o papel das resistências, e olha especialmente para o devastador impacto da guerra nos civis. Na II guerra a distinição entre combatentes e civis era meramente nominal, e isto por parte de todos os combatentes, quer aliados quer forças do eixo. Foi também uma guerra de atrocidades. Se o Holocausto é a mais estudada destas, Overy mostra-nos as carnificinas, represálias, e violência atroz infligida sobre combatentes e populações, com atrocidades de gelar o sangue. E não pensem que estes relatos se centram nos suspeitos do costume. Nesta guerra, apesar da narrativa oficial dos vencedores, todos cometeram atrocidades, quer eventos isolados levados a cabo por tropas fora de controle, quer de forma sistemática.
O livro encerra em arco, mostrando o colapso sangrento dos impérios coloniais europeus no pós-guerra. Em parte, levado a cabo por povos sublevados que tinham combatido como contingentes imperiais com a promessa de liberdades, bem como pela perda da visão do homem branco como superior, algo especialmente patente na ásia, onde uma nação vista como inferior varreu as potências europeias e subjugou os colonos europeus. Mas, também, pela divergência trazida por uma guerra combatida em nome da liberdade, que teria necessariamente que se alastrar a outros povos que não os europeus, e pelo surgir de uma nova geopolítica influenciada pela postura anti-colonial dos Estados Unidos e, posteriormente, pela guerra fria.
Blood and Ruins não é uma leitura fácil. Livro denso, condensa ideias, factos e evoluções históricas muito complexas. Apresenta um dos retratos mais abrangentes e profundos desta guerra que forjou o mundo em que hoje vivemos.
É uma tese curiosa, que amplifica os conceitos de lebensraum a leste alemão, de conquistas de prestigio num renovado império romano italiano, ou a postura agressiva japonesa de, sabendo que era considerado um povo inferior pelos ocidentais, não se deixar colonizar através da construção do seu próprio império. Mas o livro depressa avança por campos mais conhecidos, tornando-se uma verdadeira história da II Guerra. Uma que nos apresenta as principais tendências e vertentes, refletindo a enorme complexidade deste conflito, cuja história não parece esgotar-se.
Overy olha para os teatros de operação militar, para as grandes movimentações e batalhas, para os momentos de desespero. Mas também olha para o papel das resistências, e olha especialmente para o devastador impacto da guerra nos civis. Na II guerra a distinição entre combatentes e civis era meramente nominal, e isto por parte de todos os combatentes, quer aliados quer forças do eixo. Foi também uma guerra de atrocidades. Se o Holocausto é a mais estudada destas, Overy mostra-nos as carnificinas, represálias, e violência atroz infligida sobre combatentes e populações, com atrocidades de gelar o sangue. E não pensem que estes relatos se centram nos suspeitos do costume. Nesta guerra, apesar da narrativa oficial dos vencedores, todos cometeram atrocidades, quer eventos isolados levados a cabo por tropas fora de controle, quer de forma sistemática.
O livro encerra em arco, mostrando o colapso sangrento dos impérios coloniais europeus no pós-guerra. Em parte, levado a cabo por povos sublevados que tinham combatido como contingentes imperiais com a promessa de liberdades, bem como pela perda da visão do homem branco como superior, algo especialmente patente na ásia, onde uma nação vista como inferior varreu as potências europeias e subjugou os colonos europeus. Mas, também, pela divergência trazida por uma guerra combatida em nome da liberdade, que teria necessariamente que se alastrar a outros povos que não os europeus, e pelo surgir de uma nova geopolítica influenciada pela postura anti-colonial dos Estados Unidos e, posteriormente, pela guerra fria.
Blood and Ruins não é uma leitura fácil. Livro denso, condensa ideias, factos e evoluções históricas muito complexas. Apresenta um dos retratos mais abrangentes e profundos desta guerra que forjou o mundo em que hoje vivemos.
May 31, 2022
Comprehensive, encyclopedic summary of the Great Imperial War (as Overy calls it) from 1931-1945.
Book is really in three major parts:
I. Summary of the war as a whole - told more or less chronologically:
First three chapters - detailing an overview of the conflict; Preview 1931-1940; Early War Years (Axis is Winning) 1940-1943; and End of the Empire 1942-1945.
A good, readable summary - balanced - showing both Allied and Axis mistakes and inconsistencies
II. Overy compares and contrasts various aspects of the way major belligerents carried out the war:
A. How did they mobilize? - All thought it was a war for survival.
B. How did they fight the war? - From the U.S. side - Battle of the Atlantic; Germany First; Japan Second - and etc.
C. War Economics - very interesting - although German aspects were recently covered by Adam Tooze in "Wages of Destruction".
D. Dialogue about Just/UnJust War - many thought in the end this was a just war.
E. Civilian Wars - how the civilians were drawn into the war/targetted. Strategic Bombing campaigns of both sides were scrutinized. Also recently covered by Malcom Gladwell in "Bomber Mafia". There is an emerging school of thought that strategic bombing of civilians had limited usefulness in winning the war.
F. Emotional Aspects - what were the incidents of "Combat Fatigue/Shell Shock" - and how were they treated.
G. Crimes and Atrocities - a review of those perpetrated by all sides - shooting of unarmed enemy combatants/prisoners. Sexual crimes detailed.
III. Empires into Nations: A different global age
The 'punchline' - indicating that after WW2 - the empire system was 'on its last legs' - given that the Allies had just defeated the Axis - with the understanding that rights of individuals to self-determine their governments was to be assumed after the conclusion of hostilities.
The old empires defended their prior status - Great Britain with its possession in the Middle East and India; France with IndoChina and Libya; France 'wouldn't let go' - Nationalist and independence movements in Vietnam - French enlarged the (first Vietnam) War; lost at Dien Bien Phu; and made room for the Americans.
Overy documents the arc of Empires from the 1870's through their height in the 1940's - and because of the outcome of WW2 - their end in the 1960's with many former pieces of an empire becoming independent countries represented within the United Nations.
Detailed but serious - should be of interest to WW 2 historians - and those wanting to better understand the basis for the Cold War - when the U.S. and the Soviet Union were the SuperPowers of the day.
Carl Gallozzi
Book is really in three major parts:
I. Summary of the war as a whole - told more or less chronologically:
First three chapters - detailing an overview of the conflict; Preview 1931-1940; Early War Years (Axis is Winning) 1940-1943; and End of the Empire 1942-1945.
A good, readable summary - balanced - showing both Allied and Axis mistakes and inconsistencies
II. Overy compares and contrasts various aspects of the way major belligerents carried out the war:
A. How did they mobilize? - All thought it was a war for survival.
B. How did they fight the war? - From the U.S. side - Battle of the Atlantic; Germany First; Japan Second - and etc.
C. War Economics - very interesting - although German aspects were recently covered by Adam Tooze in "Wages of Destruction".
D. Dialogue about Just/UnJust War - many thought in the end this was a just war.
E. Civilian Wars - how the civilians were drawn into the war/targetted. Strategic Bombing campaigns of both sides were scrutinized. Also recently covered by Malcom Gladwell in "Bomber Mafia". There is an emerging school of thought that strategic bombing of civilians had limited usefulness in winning the war.
F. Emotional Aspects - what were the incidents of "Combat Fatigue/Shell Shock" - and how were they treated.
G. Crimes and Atrocities - a review of those perpetrated by all sides - shooting of unarmed enemy combatants/prisoners. Sexual crimes detailed.
III. Empires into Nations: A different global age
The 'punchline' - indicating that after WW2 - the empire system was 'on its last legs' - given that the Allies had just defeated the Axis - with the understanding that rights of individuals to self-determine their governments was to be assumed after the conclusion of hostilities.
The old empires defended their prior status - Great Britain with its possession in the Middle East and India; France with IndoChina and Libya; France 'wouldn't let go' - Nationalist and independence movements in Vietnam - French enlarged the (first Vietnam) War; lost at Dien Bien Phu; and made room for the Americans.
Overy documents the arc of Empires from the 1870's through their height in the 1940's - and because of the outcome of WW2 - their end in the 1960's with many former pieces of an empire becoming independent countries represented within the United Nations.
Detailed but serious - should be of interest to WW 2 historians - and those wanting to better understand the basis for the Cold War - when the U.S. and the Soviet Union were the SuperPowers of the day.
Carl Gallozzi
April 2, 2024
Richard Overy is among the very best writers on World War Two. I have read many of his books and enjoyed them all. This book is enjoyable and well written; however, I have deducted a star because I think the basic premise is incorrect. The premise is, World War Two was an Imperial War, based on an Axis attempt at Imperial realignment. Overy says Germany [Hitler] wanted to create an Empire ruling huge amounts of territory in Russia [USSR] for resources. Japan was also seeking to elevate its position by acquiring a larger Empire encompassing most of China and Southeast Asia. Italy wanted an Empire around the Mediterranean. England and France wanted to maintain their empires and power, and that set up the clash. Overy presents a LOT of evidence for his position.
I think it was far more complex, folding in personal perspectives and national pride plus economics and the drive for personal power. IMO, Hitler was the main driver of WWII. Nazism was Hitler. He founded and drove the movement. Personal power was his goal, and the expansion of Germany and pay back for WWI were key motivations. A big empire was part of it, but there was much more because Hitler wanted personal power. Japan’s war was based on Imperialism and Imperialism drove the assault on the US. The other drivers were economic and national pride. Japan was tired of Western insults and wanted economic security which an empire would give [they thought]. It might be asserted that the insults from Versailles were part of the foundations of WWII. Industrialization and oil were also foundational as the Axis wanted both. Through all this the US was not trying to establish or expand an empire [Philippines etc a quasi-empire? No. US was releasing the Philippines before WWII].
WWII killed the old empires, but were new ones established? Russia [USSR] was a surviving empire, and I do not believe the US was ever an empire because large elements in the US rejected a US empire. After WWII the US released places it controlled. China has now arisen as another empire, as it was historically. If the US once again clashes with the expanding empires of Russia and Red China would it be another Imperial war? The US would be fighting to stop their expansion into areas NOT controlled by the US. Is that an Imperial war? The definitions can get blurry.
I think it was far more complex, folding in personal perspectives and national pride plus economics and the drive for personal power. IMO, Hitler was the main driver of WWII. Nazism was Hitler. He founded and drove the movement. Personal power was his goal, and the expansion of Germany and pay back for WWI were key motivations. A big empire was part of it, but there was much more because Hitler wanted personal power. Japan’s war was based on Imperialism and Imperialism drove the assault on the US. The other drivers were economic and national pride. Japan was tired of Western insults and wanted economic security which an empire would give [they thought]. It might be asserted that the insults from Versailles were part of the foundations of WWII. Industrialization and oil were also foundational as the Axis wanted both. Through all this the US was not trying to establish or expand an empire [Philippines etc a quasi-empire? No. US was releasing the Philippines before WWII].
WWII killed the old empires, but were new ones established? Russia [USSR] was a surviving empire, and I do not believe the US was ever an empire because large elements in the US rejected a US empire. After WWII the US released places it controlled. China has now arisen as another empire, as it was historically. If the US once again clashes with the expanding empires of Russia and Red China would it be another Imperial war? The US would be fighting to stop their expansion into areas NOT controlled by the US. Is that an Imperial war? The definitions can get blurry.
November 12, 2023
This is an excellent but somewhat oddly structured book. The subtitle highlights the author’s opinion that WW2 was, or at least started as, a war about empire, that pitted the old existing European empires (Britain, France, Russia and the Netherlands) against nations that wanted to build or expand their empires (Germany, Italy, and Japan). The idea is not entirely original, rooted as it is in the rhetorical discourse of the 1930s and 1940s, but it is an important perspective.
Overy pursues the idea in the first three chapters. This is an approximately 200 pages long, condensed history of the war as seen from this "imperial" perspective. Regrettably, as a brief history of the war, this is useful but not very good. Frankly, by page 373 you may feel a bit disappointed.
Fortunately this is followed by seven chapters that are longish stand-alone essays, which highlight various aspects of WW2 that have not been much written about previously. These essays are very good. Several of them make for uncomfortable reading, as Overy explores in detail subjects such as the war crimes committed by soldiers, partisans and resistance fighters; the mental health of soldiers; or sexual violence. Stories that later generations often chose to cover with selective forgetfulness, grim stories that do not inspire much confidence in humanity. But they sadly remain entirely relevant to this day, and these are well written accusations.
There is an alternative edition with a different cover, on which the subtitle states that 1931-1945 was the last imperial war. This seems closer to Overy's thesis. His conclusion argues that the end of the war brought about the end of empire, as the hegemonies that the USA and USSR established during the Cold War were something different, and both assisted in the dismantling of the old colonial empires. This may do a disservice to the people living in these colonies, who were working towards independence well before the war. Their agency in this must be respected, even if the war accelerated the process.
"Blood and Ruins" is not a complete history of the conflict from 1931 to 1945, and I think it doesn't strive to be. It is a book that tries to fill the gaps in our collective memory, and in that it succeeds.
Overy pursues the idea in the first three chapters. This is an approximately 200 pages long, condensed history of the war as seen from this "imperial" perspective. Regrettably, as a brief history of the war, this is useful but not very good. Frankly, by page 373 you may feel a bit disappointed.
Fortunately this is followed by seven chapters that are longish stand-alone essays, which highlight various aspects of WW2 that have not been much written about previously. These essays are very good. Several of them make for uncomfortable reading, as Overy explores in detail subjects such as the war crimes committed by soldiers, partisans and resistance fighters; the mental health of soldiers; or sexual violence. Stories that later generations often chose to cover with selective forgetfulness, grim stories that do not inspire much confidence in humanity. But they sadly remain entirely relevant to this day, and these are well written accusations.
There is an alternative edition with a different cover, on which the subtitle states that 1931-1945 was the last imperial war. This seems closer to Overy's thesis. His conclusion argues that the end of the war brought about the end of empire, as the hegemonies that the USA and USSR established during the Cold War were something different, and both assisted in the dismantling of the old colonial empires. This may do a disservice to the people living in these colonies, who were working towards independence well before the war. Their agency in this must be respected, even if the war accelerated the process.
"Blood and Ruins" is not a complete history of the conflict from 1931 to 1945, and I think it doesn't strive to be. It is a book that tries to fill the gaps in our collective memory, and in that it succeeds.
August 23, 2022
A very long-read indeed. While this numbers some 880 pages of prose to read through it is densely packed with argument and evidence and if you're reading the hardback, each page has probably twice or three times as much as another book. There's a lot here. And it's very good.
Overy broadly (and correctly in my view) takes the period of the Second World War to start from from the conflicts of some of its belligerents and contextualises it as a culmination of several hundred years of colonial history. The book starts off then recounting pre-WWI and WWI history, establishing the world that led to the 1930s and shaped the outlook of the belligerents and makes a compelling case for the undercurrents as driven by the desire to conquer, annex, populate and exploit. An excoriating view of the Allies and Axis alike is a natural byproduct.
He then takes us through book-length chapters exploring themes - logistics and emotion and genocide etc - in vast detail while never succumbing to the desire to caricature the players as simply good and evil forces. It's a complex tapestry woven. At times Empire appears to slip away as the detail forms an academic military history but Overy always brings it back.
The weakest part of the work is towards the end, summing up the period broadly between 1945 and 1962: the collapse of empire. It feels rushed and unexplored (while I appreciate the focus of the book, as the title suggests is the war itself: Overy's focus is on it within the context of Empire). We're left with a lot of white space as to the imperial-like developments across the remainder of the 20th century. What of the First Gulf War? What of Afghanistan? Iraq? And now we have Russia and Ukraine and China and Taiwan begging for historical analaysis. Perhaps saved for a follow-up.
As it stands, this is up there with the best academic works on the Second World War.
Overy broadly (and correctly in my view) takes the period of the Second World War to start from from the conflicts of some of its belligerents and contextualises it as a culmination of several hundred years of colonial history. The book starts off then recounting pre-WWI and WWI history, establishing the world that led to the 1930s and shaped the outlook of the belligerents and makes a compelling case for the undercurrents as driven by the desire to conquer, annex, populate and exploit. An excoriating view of the Allies and Axis alike is a natural byproduct.
He then takes us through book-length chapters exploring themes - logistics and emotion and genocide etc - in vast detail while never succumbing to the desire to caricature the players as simply good and evil forces. It's a complex tapestry woven. At times Empire appears to slip away as the detail forms an academic military history but Overy always brings it back.
The weakest part of the work is towards the end, summing up the period broadly between 1945 and 1962: the collapse of empire. It feels rushed and unexplored (while I appreciate the focus of the book, as the title suggests is the war itself: Overy's focus is on it within the context of Empire). We're left with a lot of white space as to the imperial-like developments across the remainder of the 20th century. What of the First Gulf War? What of Afghanistan? Iraq? And now we have Russia and Ukraine and China and Taiwan begging for historical analaysis. Perhaps saved for a follow-up.
As it stands, this is up there with the best academic works on the Second World War.
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