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Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, The End of Civilization
At a time when the West seems ever more eager to call on military aggression as a means of securing international peace, Nicholson Baker's provocative narrative exploring the political misjudgements and personal biases that gave birth to the terrifying consequences of the Second World War could not be more pertinent.
With original and controversial insights brought about by meticulous research, Human Smoke re-evaluates the political turning points that led up to war and in so doing challenges some of the treasured myths we hold about how war came about and how atrocities like the Holocaust were able to happen. Baker reminds us, for instance, not to forget that it was thanks in great part to Churchill and England that Mussolini ascended to power so quickly, and that, before leading the United States against Nazi Germany, a young FDR spent much of his time lobbying for a restriction in the number of Jews admitted to Harvard. Conversely, Human Smoke also reminds us of those who had the foresight to anticipate the coming bloodshed and the courage to oppose the tide of history, as Gandhi demonstrated when he made his symbolic walk to the ocean -- for which he was immediately imprisoned by the British.
Praised by critics and readers alike for his gifted writing and exquisitely observant eye, Baker offers a combination of sweeping narrative history and a series of finely delineated vignettes of the individuals and moments that shaped history that is guaranteed to spark new dialogue on the subject.
With original and controversial insights brought about by meticulous research, Human Smoke re-evaluates the political turning points that led up to war and in so doing challenges some of the treasured myths we hold about how war came about and how atrocities like the Holocaust were able to happen. Baker reminds us, for instance, not to forget that it was thanks in great part to Churchill and England that Mussolini ascended to power so quickly, and that, before leading the United States against Nazi Germany, a young FDR spent much of his time lobbying for a restriction in the number of Jews admitted to Harvard. Conversely, Human Smoke also reminds us of those who had the foresight to anticipate the coming bloodshed and the courage to oppose the tide of history, as Gandhi demonstrated when he made his symbolic walk to the ocean -- for which he was immediately imprisoned by the British.
Praised by critics and readers alike for his gifted writing and exquisitely observant eye, Baker offers a combination of sweeping narrative history and a series of finely delineated vignettes of the individuals and moments that shaped history that is guaranteed to spark new dialogue on the subject.
576 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
About the author
Nicholson Baker
47 books860 followersNicholson Baker is a contemporary American writer of fiction and non-fiction. He was born in Manhattan in 1957 and grew up in Rochester, New York. He has published sixteen books--including The Mezzanine (1988), U and I (1991), Human Smoke (2008), The Anthologist (2009), and Substitute (2016)--and his work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, the New York Review of Books, Best American Short Stories, and Best American Essays. He has received a National Book Critics Circle award, a James Madison Freedom of Information Award, the Herman Hesse Prize, and the Katherine Anne Porter Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1999, Baker and his wife, Margaret Brentano (co-author with Baker of The World on Sunday, 2005), founded the American Newspaper Repository in order to save a large collection of U.S. newspapers, including a run of Joseph Pulitzer's influential daily, the New York World. In 2004 the Repository’s holdings became a gift to Duke University. Baker and Brentano have two children; they live on the Penobscot River in Maine.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 339 reviews
September 5, 2017
Imagine a history of World War II that dispensed with all the mythical afterglow and self-congratulatory propaganda and instead relied on contemporaneous newspaper articles and documents to build a fine-grained portrait of leaders and events. It's an attempt at objectivity, to be sure, but Baker isn't really interested in being "objective" because no one ever can be. Instead he's a pacifist who's interested in showing how nearly every leader involved was itching for war--more war and wider war and just more killing on a scale unknown beforehand. It's a compelling way to write an anti-war history, and an eye-opening one, where Churchill is more a bumbling drunken psychopath than a hero and all leaders are united in their antipathy to the anti-war movement. Written in short passages largely devoid of commentary, it's quite provocative, occasionally infuriating (fury at those involved in the war, not Baker), and at times virtually unput-downable.
August 24, 2012
Human Smoke is many things, I think.
Nicholson Baker himself intended it as a memorial to “Charles Pickett and other American and British pacifists. They’ve never really gotten their due. They tried to save Jewish refugees, feed Europe, reconcile the United States and Japan, and stop the war from happening. They failed, but they were right,” and to some extent he intended it as an argument for peace –- more likely peace as pacifism.
It is a chronicle of the worst war criminals that we’ve ever seen, specifically Hitler, Churchill and Roosevelt (and their lackeys), with cameo appearances by some other nasty criminals like Stalin, Chiang Kai-shek, and Tojo. It shows how their actions and decisions continue to reverberate into today, and how the positive or negative mythologies that have sprung up around them don’t even begin to tell the truth. Moreover, we’re still fighting the fights they started, and seem doomed to keep fighting them.
As I write this the “Blue Angels” and “Snowbirds,” those dazzling, acrobatic show offs of American and Canadian aviation military might are streaking over my home to the delight of my militarized neighbours. Their delight and my disgust. Their delight and my shame.
But back to Human Smoke. It is an anecdotal history that uncovers the ugliness of us all. There are contextual gaps, there are omissions, there is spin, but it is a powerful book and an important one. I, in my dilettante historianism, knew most of what Baker was offering already, but he surprised even me at times, and I’ve never seen the dirtiness of WWII presented in quite so powerful a way.
As I closed the cover, though, I didn’t end with a new dedication to pacifism as so many have before me. If anything, Baker’s moments spent with Gandhi merely underlined the failings of pacifism. Gandhi’s non-violence would have been for nought if England wasn’t busy bombing and being bombed by Germany. England would have rolled over Gandhi and Nehrou and we'd have forgotten all about them and their desire for independence. I didn't heed the call to pacifism, nor was I filled with a new dedication to war as an answer either.
What it did leave me with was a desire to dedicate myself to imagining a new way. Militarism doesn’t work. We know that. Pacfism doesn’t work, even though it makes those engaged in it feel better about themselves (and superior to others). But we seem incapable of finding another way. What good are our minds if we can’t imagine another way? I am positive there must be another way. I want to find it.
My gut tells me it has something to do with forgiveness. For now I will go with my gut and see where it takes me. Thanks for the kick in the ass, Nicholson Baker. I hope you do the same for many, many others.
Nicholson Baker himself intended it as a memorial to “Charles Pickett and other American and British pacifists. They’ve never really gotten their due. They tried to save Jewish refugees, feed Europe, reconcile the United States and Japan, and stop the war from happening. They failed, but they were right,” and to some extent he intended it as an argument for peace –- more likely peace as pacifism.
It is a chronicle of the worst war criminals that we’ve ever seen, specifically Hitler, Churchill and Roosevelt (and their lackeys), with cameo appearances by some other nasty criminals like Stalin, Chiang Kai-shek, and Tojo. It shows how their actions and decisions continue to reverberate into today, and how the positive or negative mythologies that have sprung up around them don’t even begin to tell the truth. Moreover, we’re still fighting the fights they started, and seem doomed to keep fighting them.
As I write this the “Blue Angels” and “Snowbirds,” those dazzling, acrobatic show offs of American and Canadian aviation military might are streaking over my home to the delight of my militarized neighbours. Their delight and my disgust. Their delight and my shame.
But back to Human Smoke. It is an anecdotal history that uncovers the ugliness of us all. There are contextual gaps, there are omissions, there is spin, but it is a powerful book and an important one. I, in my dilettante historianism, knew most of what Baker was offering already, but he surprised even me at times, and I’ve never seen the dirtiness of WWII presented in quite so powerful a way.
As I closed the cover, though, I didn’t end with a new dedication to pacifism as so many have before me. If anything, Baker’s moments spent with Gandhi merely underlined the failings of pacifism. Gandhi’s non-violence would have been for nought if England wasn’t busy bombing and being bombed by Germany. England would have rolled over Gandhi and Nehrou and we'd have forgotten all about them and their desire for independence. I didn't heed the call to pacifism, nor was I filled with a new dedication to war as an answer either.
What it did leave me with was a desire to dedicate myself to imagining a new way. Militarism doesn’t work. We know that. Pacfism doesn’t work, even though it makes those engaged in it feel better about themselves (and superior to others). But we seem incapable of finding another way. What good are our minds if we can’t imagine another way? I am positive there must be another way. I want to find it.
My gut tells me it has something to do with forgiveness. For now I will go with my gut and see where it takes me. Thanks for the kick in the ass, Nicholson Baker. I hope you do the same for many, many others.
August 5, 2022
A tapestry wove in hell and draped over the world. My friends often ask me why I read so many books on Nazism. I tell them that it is because we still have to learn the lessons that we did not learn: lessons that seem to be ignored more and more everyday - lessons that we need to learn if we are to survive into the middle of this century.
June 11, 2008
A collection of vignettes — some only a paragraph long, few longer than a page — of episodes from the years leading up to the second World War, and then from the years of the war itself up through 1941. Baker mostly leaves his own voice out of it, except for a few paragraphs of “afterword” at the end.
The book generated a lot of heat when it was released a few months ago because it challenges the idea that World War II was a “good” war, something that is today an article of faith for all decent civilized people.
World War II is so revered these days, with all of the “greatest generation” fooferaw, politicians trying to get themselves compared to Churchill, and the like, that people have come to have a weird nostalgia for the period as if it were the high point of civilization, when in fact it was very much the opposite.
The greatest generation gave us the greatest failure of civilization the world has ever seen, resulting in the deaths of millions, the development of the technology of genocide, the normalization of a military policy of barbarity towards civilians, and ending with a gargantuan communist terror-state crushing much of Europe and Asia and, along with the United States, threatening the world with nuclear annihilation.
The only thing that might have been worse would have been if the Axis powers had won. Ay, there’s the rub. And that sentiment has been the quick and potent retort to anyone who questions the article of faith.
Baker isn’t satisfied with this: “My feelings about the war change every day. But I also feel that there is a way of looking at the war and the Holocaust that is truer and sadder and stranger than the received version.”
The defenders of the received version were quick to respond. In the New York Times, a reviewer said:
But in fact, with few exceptions, the prisoners of Belsen, Dachau, and Buchenwald were not liberated by the war — they were murdered during the course of it. And Baker does suggest, in many places in the book, how many opportunites to aid and rescue Jewish refugees and “untold millions” of suffering Europeans, were squandered — indeed, actively discouraged or forbidden — by the Allies in pursuit of their war aims or other policies.
Much of the criticism of Baker’s book is similarly knee-jerk. Some borders on paranoid — ascribing to Baker opinions and assertions that he never explicitly makes, but finding them implicit in his constellation of vignettes. Baker invites this sort of thing by muting his own voice and leaving the interpretation of his examples (and his choices of what examples to include) to the reader. I think Baker probably deliberately chose to suggest controversial things in this way that he felt afraid to or unable to defend explicitly, which is too bad, but his critics see this as a license to invent straw man arguments to attack, which is also too bad. Someone called the book “a 500-page Rorschach Test,” which hits the nail on the head.
The callousness to the plight of Jewish refugees is one of the themes of the selections Baker chose. Other themes that receive prominent play include:
* the evolution of the policy of attacks on the civilian population, particularly by the Allies — largely aerial bombardments, but also chemical & biological warfare and starvation blockades
* that these attacks on the civilian population, sold as a method for demoralizing and weakening the enemy, most frequently did just the opposite, and served mainly to slake a thirst for bloody revenge on the part of the attackers
* the efforts of various pacifist groups to encourage negotiation, inoculate against war fever, and assist refugees and other war victims
* the evolution of the “final solution” as the war escalated, with the implication (I think) that the Nazis became more savage toward their victims the more they themselves felt the savagery of the war
* the surprising (to me) extent to which the United States was engaging in war against the Axis powers prior to the Pearl Harbor attack and the formal declaration of war
The book is a powerful, captivating, relentless read. It has flaws — Baker’s aforementioned editorial stand-offishness; an unseemly amount of naïveté, particularly when it comes to being shocked and surprised (or worse, credulous) at politicians’ hypocritical platitudes or at the commonplace racism of the period; and a largely United States-centric view of the war. Still, it’s an eye-opener, and a good remedy for anyone who’s had a poisonous dose of History Channel.
The book generated a lot of heat when it was released a few months ago because it challenges the idea that World War II was a “good” war, something that is today an article of faith for all decent civilized people.
World War II is so revered these days, with all of the “greatest generation” fooferaw, politicians trying to get themselves compared to Churchill, and the like, that people have come to have a weird nostalgia for the period as if it were the high point of civilization, when in fact it was very much the opposite.
The greatest generation gave us the greatest failure of civilization the world has ever seen, resulting in the deaths of millions, the development of the technology of genocide, the normalization of a military policy of barbarity towards civilians, and ending with a gargantuan communist terror-state crushing much of Europe and Asia and, along with the United States, threatening the world with nuclear annihilation.
The only thing that might have been worse would have been if the Axis powers had won. Ay, there’s the rub. And that sentiment has been the quick and potent retort to anyone who questions the article of faith.
Baker isn’t satisfied with this: “My feelings about the war change every day. But I also feel that there is a way of looking at the war and the Holocaust that is truer and sadder and stranger than the received version.”
The defenders of the received version were quick to respond. In the New York Times, a reviewer said:
Did the war “help anyone who needed help?” Mr. Baker asks in a plaintive afterword. The prisoners of Belsen, Dachau and Buchenwald come to mind, as well as untold millions of Russians, Danes, Belgians, Czechs and Poles. Nowhere and at no point does Mr. Baker ever suggest, in any serious way, how their liberation might have been effected other than by force of arms.
But in fact, with few exceptions, the prisoners of Belsen, Dachau, and Buchenwald were not liberated by the war — they were murdered during the course of it. And Baker does suggest, in many places in the book, how many opportunites to aid and rescue Jewish refugees and “untold millions” of suffering Europeans, were squandered — indeed, actively discouraged or forbidden — by the Allies in pursuit of their war aims or other policies.
Much of the criticism of Baker’s book is similarly knee-jerk. Some borders on paranoid — ascribing to Baker opinions and assertions that he never explicitly makes, but finding them implicit in his constellation of vignettes. Baker invites this sort of thing by muting his own voice and leaving the interpretation of his examples (and his choices of what examples to include) to the reader. I think Baker probably deliberately chose to suggest controversial things in this way that he felt afraid to or unable to defend explicitly, which is too bad, but his critics see this as a license to invent straw man arguments to attack, which is also too bad. Someone called the book “a 500-page Rorschach Test,” which hits the nail on the head.
The callousness to the plight of Jewish refugees is one of the themes of the selections Baker chose. Other themes that receive prominent play include:
* the evolution of the policy of attacks on the civilian population, particularly by the Allies — largely aerial bombardments, but also chemical & biological warfare and starvation blockades
* that these attacks on the civilian population, sold as a method for demoralizing and weakening the enemy, most frequently did just the opposite, and served mainly to slake a thirst for bloody revenge on the part of the attackers
* the efforts of various pacifist groups to encourage negotiation, inoculate against war fever, and assist refugees and other war victims
* the evolution of the “final solution” as the war escalated, with the implication (I think) that the Nazis became more savage toward their victims the more they themselves felt the savagery of the war
* the surprising (to me) extent to which the United States was engaging in war against the Axis powers prior to the Pearl Harbor attack and the formal declaration of war
The book is a powerful, captivating, relentless read. It has flaws — Baker’s aforementioned editorial stand-offishness; an unseemly amount of naïveté, particularly when it comes to being shocked and surprised (or worse, credulous) at politicians’ hypocritical platitudes or at the commonplace racism of the period; and a largely United States-centric view of the war. Still, it’s an eye-opener, and a good remedy for anyone who’s had a poisonous dose of History Channel.
December 27, 2019
A striking anti war book. Baker takes the reader through the years leading up to WWII using quotes, speeches, diaries and letters. There is much history here we would like to think humans incapable of inflicting on one another and so we want to avert our eyes. Yet it is a compelling read horrific in its cold facts and nightmarish history with some shining lights of hope offered by those courageous souls willing to stand against war.
March 25, 2008
An earth shattering book. Baker takes everything you know about the run up to World War II and stands it all on its head. I haven't had a book haunt me like this in a long time. Everything I know is wrong.
Roosevelt knew about the Japanese navy moving toward Pearl Harbor.
Winston Churchill did all he could to antagonize Germany into a war of attrition through the air.
Britain bombed German cities before the London Blitz started.
Jews suffered more due to the English blockade of Germany than anyone else.
Roosevelt purposefully antagonized the Japanese, hoping for a blow so the U.S. would willingly go to war.
In 1940 and 1941 peace was possible and tens of millions of Europeans, Jews and gentiles alike, could have been saved.
An unwillingness to kill does not constitute your support for your nation's chosen enemies.
Britain put Germans, mostly Jewish refugees, into internment camps.
Hitler was a monster but Roosevelt and Churchill chose war over diplomacy and Churchill was having a grand ole time playing at war.
It sounds cliched to say that a book will change how you look at things. Shouldn't any great book? Could it be that the true heroes of World War II are those that worked to prevent it?
Roosevelt knew about the Japanese navy moving toward Pearl Harbor.
Winston Churchill did all he could to antagonize Germany into a war of attrition through the air.
Britain bombed German cities before the London Blitz started.
Jews suffered more due to the English blockade of Germany than anyone else.
Roosevelt purposefully antagonized the Japanese, hoping for a blow so the U.S. would willingly go to war.
In 1940 and 1941 peace was possible and tens of millions of Europeans, Jews and gentiles alike, could have been saved.
An unwillingness to kill does not constitute your support for your nation's chosen enemies.
Britain put Germans, mostly Jewish refugees, into internment camps.
Hitler was a monster but Roosevelt and Churchill chose war over diplomacy and Churchill was having a grand ole time playing at war.
It sounds cliched to say that a book will change how you look at things. Shouldn't any great book? Could it be that the true heroes of World War II are those that worked to prevent it?
April 4, 2020
One of my favorite German words is mitdenken. It’s one of those beguilingly simple words that’s so hard to translate into English (can’t speak for other languages). It literally means “to think with (or along),” which implies that one has to know something about what is being talked about—a joke, history, culture—in order to really understand the meaning behind what is said or written. You have to be able to fill in the blanks of what is implied in order to get it. I wrote about this before as it applied to humor. In the case of Human Smoke, you need to know something about pre-World War II history or, at a minimum, something about the war itself.
The book is unlike anything else I’ve read. It’s a chronological collection of snippets from periodicals, memoirs and diaries, and other contemporaneous sources from 1914 through December 31, 1941. Nicholson Baker adds very little analysis, polemicizing, or commentary other than sentences to round out the source materials and serve as a loose rhetorical glue to tie each passage together. Some are a sentence or two, few are longer than a page. He gives prominence to some obscure, mostly forgotten historical figures and events, especially related to pacifism. The result is a mesmerizing, compelling narrative; indeed, if you are drawn in, it is hard to put down. And since every reference comes from a concurrent source, it is implied (mitdenken!) that people of the time knew about these events. This book is meant to counter a certain revisionism and amnesia that has set in around history that seems so familiar to us.
We learn some inconvenient truths. We learn that Winston Churchill was an anti-Semite; that he was a marginalized figure because of his early century political and policy failures; that he his feelings about colonial subjects of the British empire were by and large paternally racist; that he saw military intervention as a policy of first resort, not last; that he acted and saw the world according to what he wanted to believe, not based not he pragmatic reality he was faced with; and, as his non-response in warning the people of Coventry about a bombing he knew was coming, viewed people as chess pieces in a grand game, not as flesh-and-blood individuals.
And while Baker has a point of view that evolves over the book (mitdenken!), he doesn’t shy away from issues that are not clear cut. He revisits selections from the diaries of Victor Klemperer. He provides example after example how a global anti-Semitism hindered attempts resettle Jews around the world, leaving most of them to die in the Holocaust. To his credit, Baker does not pass judgment, he just lets facts speak for themselves. We learn about common decency and bravery:
In my opinion, Baker’s efforts, in the end, did not sway me that pacifism was preferable to what actually happened during the course of the war. He refers often to Gandhi, who was fighting against British colonialism and was interned with Nehru and others for part of the war; who were “jailed for public pacifism” which was equated with being Nazi sympathizers. As much as many of Churchill’s action repelled me, I am not convinced, as Gandhi concluded, that “Hitlerism and Churchillism are in fact the same thing” or that “[t]he difference is only one of degree.” Nor does Baker ever convince me that nonviolent opposition to Hitler—which might have caused a much greater death toll than the war produced—was a viable alternative. But this “account” does raise the stature of pacifists in my mind, especially Pickett, whose organization shared a Nobel Peace Prize in 1947. He was a consistent voice who fought famine and injustice, opposed war, and did his best to serve refugees regardless of where they came from.
Human Smoke is a fitting companion to Adam Hochschild’s comparative history of British pacifists and the military in Word War I, To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 . Much like that book, I feel I learned so much about a history I thought I understood well. And much like that book, I am as confused about what I would have felt and done if I were living through those times. Would I have had the intelligence, insight, and character to engage in constructive mitdenken?
The book is unlike anything else I’ve read. It’s a chronological collection of snippets from periodicals, memoirs and diaries, and other contemporaneous sources from 1914 through December 31, 1941. Nicholson Baker adds very little analysis, polemicizing, or commentary other than sentences to round out the source materials and serve as a loose rhetorical glue to tie each passage together. Some are a sentence or two, few are longer than a page. He gives prominence to some obscure, mostly forgotten historical figures and events, especially related to pacifism. The result is a mesmerizing, compelling narrative; indeed, if you are drawn in, it is hard to put down. And since every reference comes from a concurrent source, it is implied (mitdenken!) that people of the time knew about these events. This book is meant to counter a certain revisionism and amnesia that has set in around history that seems so familiar to us.
We learn some inconvenient truths. We learn that Winston Churchill was an anti-Semite; that he was a marginalized figure because of his early century political and policy failures; that he his feelings about colonial subjects of the British empire were by and large paternally racist; that he saw military intervention as a policy of first resort, not last; that he acted and saw the world according to what he wanted to believe, not based not he pragmatic reality he was faced with; and, as his non-response in warning the people of Coventry about a bombing he knew was coming, viewed people as chess pieces in a grand game, not as flesh-and-blood individuals.
Bombing was, to Churchill a form of pedagogy—a way of enlightening city dwellers as to the hellishness of remote battlefields by killing them.He was not alone in many of these ideas. Neville Chamberlain and Franklin Roosevelt were also anti-Semites who shared many of Churchill’s views. We also learn that Roosevelt indeed engaged in many actions that sped up war in Asia and Europe. We learn that pacifists like Clarence Pickett—to whom Baker dedicates Human Smoke—the head of the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers), congresswoman Jeanette Rankin—the only member of Congress to oppose U.S. entry into the war, and Muriel Lester—a follower of Gandhi and a Christian relief worker—were remarkably foresighted about the consequences of a world war. We learn that British bombing of cities in Germany started long before the German bombing of Britain. We also learn about unlawful acts of press censorship and intimidation that were practiced regularly by the Roosevelt administration.
And while Baker has a point of view that evolves over the book (mitdenken!), he doesn’t shy away from issues that are not clear cut. He revisits selections from the diaries of Victor Klemperer. He provides example after example how a global anti-Semitism hindered attempts resettle Jews around the world, leaving most of them to die in the Holocaust. To his credit, Baker does not pass judgment, he just lets facts speak for themselves. We learn about common decency and bravery:
In Antwerp, Jews were compelled to wear Star of David armbands. In solidarity, non-Jews in the city wore armbands, too. It was November 1940.And he also recounts stories of unimaginable brutality, such as the mother, when brought to Babi Yar, who threw her child in a pit of bodies, jumped on top of the child and laid still for hours after dead bodies covered them both, before both emerged to survive the war.
In my opinion, Baker’s efforts, in the end, did not sway me that pacifism was preferable to what actually happened during the course of the war. He refers often to Gandhi, who was fighting against British colonialism and was interned with Nehru and others for part of the war; who were “jailed for public pacifism” which was equated with being Nazi sympathizers. As much as many of Churchill’s action repelled me, I am not convinced, as Gandhi concluded, that “Hitlerism and Churchillism are in fact the same thing” or that “[t]he difference is only one of degree.” Nor does Baker ever convince me that nonviolent opposition to Hitler—which might have caused a much greater death toll than the war produced—was a viable alternative. But this “account” does raise the stature of pacifists in my mind, especially Pickett, whose organization shared a Nobel Peace Prize in 1947. He was a consistent voice who fought famine and injustice, opposed war, and did his best to serve refugees regardless of where they came from.
Human Smoke is a fitting companion to Adam Hochschild’s comparative history of British pacifists and the military in Word War I, To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 . Much like that book, I feel I learned so much about a history I thought I understood well. And much like that book, I am as confused about what I would have felt and done if I were living through those times. Would I have had the intelligence, insight, and character to engage in constructive mitdenken?
May 1, 2008
In a 1942 essay called "Pacifism and the War," Orwell wrote a review of this new book:
"1. The Fascizing processes occurring in Britain as a result of war are systematically exaggerated.
2. The actual record of Fascism, especially its pre-war history, is ignored or pooh-poohed as ‘propaganda’. Discussion of what the world would actually be like if the Axis dominated it is evaded.
3. Those who want to struggle against Fascism are accused of being wholehearted defenders of capitalist ‘democracy’. The fact that the rich everywhere tend to be pro-Fascist and the working class are nearly always anti-Fascist is hushed up.
4. It is tacitly pretended that the war is only between Britain and Germany. Mention of Russia and China, and their fate if Fascism is permitted to win, is avoided. (You won’t find one word about Russia or China in the three letters you sent to me.)"
Not all of these criticisms of wartime pacifists can be applied directly to Baker's book, but there is some pretty significant overlap.
This book is a captivating read, but it should not be treated as a serious work of history at all. It's useful in reminding us that all parties in war, even the "good guys," committ massive atrocities and in recovering the memories of some truly decent and admirable Quaker peace activists, but it belongs in the fiction section of your local library.
"1. The Fascizing processes occurring in Britain as a result of war are systematically exaggerated.
2. The actual record of Fascism, especially its pre-war history, is ignored or pooh-poohed as ‘propaganda’. Discussion of what the world would actually be like if the Axis dominated it is evaded.
3. Those who want to struggle against Fascism are accused of being wholehearted defenders of capitalist ‘democracy’. The fact that the rich everywhere tend to be pro-Fascist and the working class are nearly always anti-Fascist is hushed up.
4. It is tacitly pretended that the war is only between Britain and Germany. Mention of Russia and China, and their fate if Fascism is permitted to win, is avoided. (You won’t find one word about Russia or China in the three letters you sent to me.)"
Not all of these criticisms of wartime pacifists can be applied directly to Baker's book, but there is some pretty significant overlap.
This book is a captivating read, but it should not be treated as a serious work of history at all. It's useful in reminding us that all parties in war, even the "good guys," committ massive atrocities and in recovering the memories of some truly decent and admirable Quaker peace activists, but it belongs in the fiction section of your local library.
January 3, 2016
This book consists of numerous and varied bits of trivial and unconnected stories from the time prior to and into the beginning of World War II. The stories appear in the book in strict chronological order. The author provides no discussion of context or connecting commentary. The stories speak for themselves. The book starts with August 1892, jumps to 1914, and then proceeds more slowly through the 1920s and 1930s. The book ends on December 31, 1941.
A reader needs to have enough knowledge of history to provide their own context to understand how the stories in this book are related. Consequently, I can see how it might be possible for readers influenced by various world views could arrive at differing conclusions. The only overt commentary from the author regarding the meaning of the whole is in the title, the subtitle and the Afterword of the book. In the Afterword the author praises the efforts of the pacifists who "failed but they were right."
The stories are interesting. However, getting through a long book filled with them can be a bit of a drag. I have selected a variety of stories from the book below to provide an idea of what the book is like. The comments prior to each quotation are my own.
Here's something that Churchill in later years probably wished he hadn't said:
"Winston Churchill visited Rome. "I could not help being charmed by Signor Mussolini's gentle and simple bearing, and by his calm, detached poise in spite of so many burdens and danger," Churchill said in a press statement. Italian fascism, he said, had demonstrated that there was a way to combat subversive forces; it had provided the "necessary antidote to the russian virus."
"If I had been an Italian I am sure I should have been entirely with you from the beginning to the end of your victorious struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism," Churchill told the Romans. It was January 20, 1927. "
The following is an example of some (grim) humor:
Milton Mayer, a writer who worked for the president of the University of Chicago, heard a story.
" A Jew is riding a streetcar, reading the Volkischer Beobachter the main Nazi paper. A non-Jew sits down next to him and says, "Why are you reading the Beobachter ?" The Jew says: "Look, I work in a factory all day, my wife nags me, my kids are sick, and there's no money for food. what should I do on my way home, read the Jewish newspaper? 'Pogrom in Romania.' 'Jews Murdered in Poland.' 'New Laws against Jews.' No, sir, a half hour a day, on the streetcar, I read the Beobachter. 'Jews the World Capitalists.' 'Jews Control Russia.' 'Jews Rule in England.' That's me they're talking about. A half hour a day I'm somebody." " (approx. January 1938)
Here's a report with a name to remember:
"Lord Cherwell's personal secretary looked at 650 reconnaissance photographs of places the Royal Air Force had bombed earlier that summer. The secretary's conclusions were that, on average, one in five airplanes that took off from England to bomb Germany or the coast of France successfully placed its bombs somewhere within seventy-five square miles of its assigned target. when there was no moon or heavy flack, the miss rate was even higher.
The secretary's name was David Benusson-Butt, and this report, dated August 18, 1941, achieved fame as the Butt Report."
Here's an example of how justice and due process are the first victims in war:
"Muriel Lester, author of "Speed the Food Ships," became on of England's political detenus. It was August 19, 1941.
Lester was on a boat in Trinidad, on her way to the Far East, where she planned to visit Gandhi. A British official said to her, "I am afraid I shall have to ask you to come ashore."
"Are you arresting me?" said Lester.
"Oh,no!" said the official.
"Then, supposing I say I won't come," said Lester. "What happens?"
I'm afraid--er--we would have to find means to induce you to do so."
Lester's passport was revoked, and she was held in a barbedwire prison camp for a month and a half, without charges. Later, she was transferred to Holloway jail in London and then, after friends made calls to the Home Office, freed. "
I found this quote of interest since it seemed to indicate that some gentile Germans had humane feelings toward the Jews:
"The Stuttgart Courier published an article attacking cases of unsuitable compassion for Jews. These cases were not unusual, the newspaper said. For instance, women from the Jewish old people's home wearing the star would get on a tram car and passengers would stand to give them their seats. Once, according to the newspaper, a German said to a Jew, "It really requires more courage to wear the star than to go to war." It was October 4, 1941.
Jeanette Ranken's vote against entering WWII after Pearl Harbor (December 8, 1941):
"When she heard here name in the roll call she stood. 'As a woman I can't go to war,' she said, 'And I refuse to send anyone else.' Hers was the only no vote, and it was hissed and booed. In the cloak room some Army officers shouted abuse at her. "You've been drinking," Ranken said, and she took refuge in a phone booth. Later she told a colleague that the representatives had pressured her to make the vote unanimous. And yet it was that insistence on uniformity, that intolerance of descent, that was just what was wrong with the other side in the war. No, Ranken thought, I'm going to vote one vote for democracy. "
I have not included the description referred to in the following story, but trust me, it's absurd:
Life Magazine published an article on how to tell a Japanese person from a Chinese person. It was December 22, 1941. ......
The following review is from PageADay's Book Lover's Calendar for 2010. This is how I learned about the book.:
THE GOOD WAR?
Nicholson Baker has a point to make, but Human Smoke is not a straightforward polemic that argues his case. Rather it is a book of vignettes that show the state of the world leading up to World War II. The raw material comes from newspapers, radio programs, speeches, diaries, and similar cultural flotsam. They are all very artfully put together and presented to us, so that by the end we see the entire tragic picture of a world gone wrong and Mr. Baker’s argument is driven unfailingly home.
HUMAN SMOKE: THE BEGINNINGS OF WORLD WAR II, THE END OF CIVILIZATION, by Nicholson Baker (Simon & Schuster, 2008)
A reader needs to have enough knowledge of history to provide their own context to understand how the stories in this book are related. Consequently, I can see how it might be possible for readers influenced by various world views could arrive at differing conclusions. The only overt commentary from the author regarding the meaning of the whole is in the title, the subtitle and the Afterword of the book. In the Afterword the author praises the efforts of the pacifists who "failed but they were right."
The stories are interesting. However, getting through a long book filled with them can be a bit of a drag. I have selected a variety of stories from the book below to provide an idea of what the book is like. The comments prior to each quotation are my own.
Here's something that Churchill in later years probably wished he hadn't said:
"Winston Churchill visited Rome. "I could not help being charmed by Signor Mussolini's gentle and simple bearing, and by his calm, detached poise in spite of so many burdens and danger," Churchill said in a press statement. Italian fascism, he said, had demonstrated that there was a way to combat subversive forces; it had provided the "necessary antidote to the russian virus."
"If I had been an Italian I am sure I should have been entirely with you from the beginning to the end of your victorious struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism," Churchill told the Romans. It was January 20, 1927. "
The following is an example of some (grim) humor:
Milton Mayer, a writer who worked for the president of the University of Chicago, heard a story.
" A Jew is riding a streetcar, reading the Volkischer Beobachter the main Nazi paper. A non-Jew sits down next to him and says, "Why are you reading the Beobachter ?" The Jew says: "Look, I work in a factory all day, my wife nags me, my kids are sick, and there's no money for food. what should I do on my way home, read the Jewish newspaper? 'Pogrom in Romania.' 'Jews Murdered in Poland.' 'New Laws against Jews.' No, sir, a half hour a day, on the streetcar, I read the Beobachter. 'Jews the World Capitalists.' 'Jews Control Russia.' 'Jews Rule in England.' That's me they're talking about. A half hour a day I'm somebody." " (approx. January 1938)
Here's a report with a name to remember:
"Lord Cherwell's personal secretary looked at 650 reconnaissance photographs of places the Royal Air Force had bombed earlier that summer. The secretary's conclusions were that, on average, one in five airplanes that took off from England to bomb Germany or the coast of France successfully placed its bombs somewhere within seventy-five square miles of its assigned target. when there was no moon or heavy flack, the miss rate was even higher.
The secretary's name was David Benusson-Butt, and this report, dated August 18, 1941, achieved fame as the Butt Report."
Here's an example of how justice and due process are the first victims in war:
"Muriel Lester, author of "Speed the Food Ships," became on of England's political detenus. It was August 19, 1941.
Lester was on a boat in Trinidad, on her way to the Far East, where she planned to visit Gandhi. A British official said to her, "I am afraid I shall have to ask you to come ashore."
"Are you arresting me?" said Lester.
"Oh,no!" said the official.
"Then, supposing I say I won't come," said Lester. "What happens?"
I'm afraid--er--we would have to find means to induce you to do so."
Lester's passport was revoked, and she was held in a barbedwire prison camp for a month and a half, without charges. Later, she was transferred to Holloway jail in London and then, after friends made calls to the Home Office, freed. "
I found this quote of interest since it seemed to indicate that some gentile Germans had humane feelings toward the Jews:
"The Stuttgart Courier published an article attacking cases of unsuitable compassion for Jews. These cases were not unusual, the newspaper said. For instance, women from the Jewish old people's home wearing the star would get on a tram car and passengers would stand to give them their seats. Once, according to the newspaper, a German said to a Jew, "It really requires more courage to wear the star than to go to war." It was October 4, 1941.
Jeanette Ranken's vote against entering WWII after Pearl Harbor (December 8, 1941):
"When she heard here name in the roll call she stood. 'As a woman I can't go to war,' she said, 'And I refuse to send anyone else.' Hers was the only no vote, and it was hissed and booed. In the cloak room some Army officers shouted abuse at her. "You've been drinking," Ranken said, and she took refuge in a phone booth. Later she told a colleague that the representatives had pressured her to make the vote unanimous. And yet it was that insistence on uniformity, that intolerance of descent, that was just what was wrong with the other side in the war. No, Ranken thought, I'm going to vote one vote for democracy. "
I have not included the description referred to in the following story, but trust me, it's absurd:
Life Magazine published an article on how to tell a Japanese person from a Chinese person. It was December 22, 1941. ......
The following review is from PageADay's Book Lover's Calendar for 2010. This is how I learned about the book.:
THE GOOD WAR?
Nicholson Baker has a point to make, but Human Smoke is not a straightforward polemic that argues his case. Rather it is a book of vignettes that show the state of the world leading up to World War II. The raw material comes from newspapers, radio programs, speeches, diaries, and similar cultural flotsam. They are all very artfully put together and presented to us, so that by the end we see the entire tragic picture of a world gone wrong and Mr. Baker’s argument is driven unfailingly home.
HUMAN SMOKE: THE BEGINNINGS OF WORLD WAR II, THE END OF CIVILIZATION, by Nicholson Baker (Simon & Schuster, 2008)
April 28, 2008
The brilliance of this book lies in its restraint. Baker is not an academic historian, nor is he writing a work of conventional history. Thus, he has the good sense to make his historical argument--inasmuch as this book has an argument that you can pin down in the text--as obliquely as possible. Baker does not, as some critics would have it, say that World War II was a Bad War. Nor does he claim, as those same critics would have it, that Roosevelt and Churchill were morally no better than Hitler. He does, however, isolate facts about Roosevelt and Churchill that are consistently thought-provoking and occasionally embarrassing. And he does give voice to many pacifists who tried in vain to stop the war from coming (and tried to stop it sooner once it did come). In fact, the goal of Baker's book is rather modest: He wants simply to provoke readers into considering truisms about World War II in a new light. In this, he has succeeded very well.
January 2, 2011
I found Nicholson Baker's unflinching presentation of the events leading up to America's entry into WWII a moving reminder that getting the facts is a slippery matter at the best of times; in war it is impossible. This makes me think that since we're always either leading up to war or in war, we can never hold onto the facts or apprehend the truth which seems to live forever on a metal table dying of multiple stab-wounds.
There were many moments in this book where I realized everything I knew was wrong. And this disturbed me, how newsreels seen in childhood with their plucky music and exploding skies could allow me to swallow the pattern whole; the template for many myths I never questioned. This book also helped me make sense of the Cold War, which I see now is a refinement of a half-century dedicated to making all out war against civilians acceptable.
I was also struck, while I read this book, by a sense of observing the barbarism of another time, like reading about a Roman general lining a wide dirt road with a thousand severed heads on sharp sticks. But I recognize this as a dangerous illusion fostered by living in a new century. We are no different. The dedicated pacifists and non-resistants (given rare tribute in this book) know this all too well as they work to convince us that our baser selves are not human nature. That is propaganda. We are better than that, and we are capable of doing less wrong.
Perhaps, like me, you have put yourself in that civilized club of the less wrong. You do not need such a lesson, and you would prefer such people stop their dull preaching. But pause a moment to count the explosions at the cineplex, and think about the raised middle fingers and audible fuck-yous that pepper any given day among your fellow consumers. The next war lives in those fingers.
There were many moments in this book where I realized everything I knew was wrong. And this disturbed me, how newsreels seen in childhood with their plucky music and exploding skies could allow me to swallow the pattern whole; the template for many myths I never questioned. This book also helped me make sense of the Cold War, which I see now is a refinement of a half-century dedicated to making all out war against civilians acceptable.
I was also struck, while I read this book, by a sense of observing the barbarism of another time, like reading about a Roman general lining a wide dirt road with a thousand severed heads on sharp sticks. But I recognize this as a dangerous illusion fostered by living in a new century. We are no different. The dedicated pacifists and non-resistants (given rare tribute in this book) know this all too well as they work to convince us that our baser selves are not human nature. That is propaganda. We are better than that, and we are capable of doing less wrong.
Perhaps, like me, you have put yourself in that civilized club of the less wrong. You do not need such a lesson, and you would prefer such people stop their dull preaching. But pause a moment to count the explosions at the cineplex, and think about the raised middle fingers and audible fuck-yous that pepper any given day among your fellow consumers. The next war lives in those fingers.
January 9, 2018
Nicholson Baker, a novelist known for his descriptions of minutia, takes on the events that led up to the 1939 outbreak of hostilities in Europe and the United States subsequent entry in 1941. This non-fiction discussion of the pre- and early war years is based entirely on published materials -- mainly newspaper accounts. In short, this is not a piece of original research; it is not an academic history. While the book is rich in detail, the details included are all aimed at one objective: presenting a pacifist narrative of the war, in which France did the right thing by not fighting back against the Nazis, in which Churchill's leadership skills and war strategy are called into question, and the United States entry into the war is presented as a mistake. Not surprisingly, this book has angered many WWII armchair historians and History Channel watchers, as its pantheon of heroes does not include any Allied combatants. Instead its heroes are those who resisted the war. For example, he praises the efforts of pacifists such as Clarence Pickett and Rufus Jones, who traveled back and forth from the United States to Europe preaching peace. Another figure that appears prominently in his account of the war is Gandhi, who also objected to US entry into war.
This focus is not without its problems, especially when the narrative turns to the fate of the Jews in Europe under Nazism. Baker, relying solely on published contemporary sources, suggests that the Third Reich would have preferred to transport Jews to Madagascar as the 'final solution' than sending over six million European Jews to their death. In fact, although he does not shy away from including stories about atrocities inflicted on the Jews, he seems to suggest that American entry into the war forced the hand of the Nazis, so that the only option became mass murder! This presentation is problematic for multiple reasons. First and foremost, it seems to suggest that the forcible mass deportation of over 4 million Western European Jews from their homes is an acceptable outcome if it will prevent war. Second, it fails to take into consideration that Hitler's persecution of Jews started prior to the outbreak of war or the fact that Hitler authorized the killing of the disabled in Germany within one month of his attack on Poland. Given the involuntary "euthanasia" of mentally ill and disabled persons began before Nazi Germany experienced any significant outside resistance, there is no reason to believe that appeasement would have prevented an escalation in the systematic persecution of Jews, the disabled, political dissidents, gypsies, or any other group. It is an issue that Baker's pacifist narrative never seriously addresses and consequently at times, his version of pacifism verges on cruel and inhuman.
Still, there are elements of this book that are deserving of praise. First, unlike many accounts written by nonprofessional historians, Baker's account offers a realistic portrayal of war in all its ugly detail. It glorifies neither American motives for getting involved in the war nor this country's actual involvement. What emerges is an accurate portrayal of the deep division in this country over if we should become involved in the European conflict and on which side. There were in fact many famous Americans, such as the founder of Ford Motor Company and Charles Lindbergh, who supported Nazi Germany and its policy, including its eugenics policy. What popular histories of WWII typically fail to mention is that many US states in the 1930s had laws that mirrored German eugenics laws on forced sterilization of the so-called 'feeble minded'. Thus, in its unflinching portrayal of the ugly side of war, it does succeed in raising many of the "what if" questions that deserve thoughtful consideration, but which in our contemporary glorification of the "greatest generation" often get buried.
This focus is not without its problems, especially when the narrative turns to the fate of the Jews in Europe under Nazism. Baker, relying solely on published contemporary sources, suggests that the Third Reich would have preferred to transport Jews to Madagascar as the 'final solution' than sending over six million European Jews to their death. In fact, although he does not shy away from including stories about atrocities inflicted on the Jews, he seems to suggest that American entry into the war forced the hand of the Nazis, so that the only option became mass murder! This presentation is problematic for multiple reasons. First and foremost, it seems to suggest that the forcible mass deportation of over 4 million Western European Jews from their homes is an acceptable outcome if it will prevent war. Second, it fails to take into consideration that Hitler's persecution of Jews started prior to the outbreak of war or the fact that Hitler authorized the killing of the disabled in Germany within one month of his attack on Poland. Given the involuntary "euthanasia" of mentally ill and disabled persons began before Nazi Germany experienced any significant outside resistance, there is no reason to believe that appeasement would have prevented an escalation in the systematic persecution of Jews, the disabled, political dissidents, gypsies, or any other group. It is an issue that Baker's pacifist narrative never seriously addresses and consequently at times, his version of pacifism verges on cruel and inhuman.
Still, there are elements of this book that are deserving of praise. First, unlike many accounts written by nonprofessional historians, Baker's account offers a realistic portrayal of war in all its ugly detail. It glorifies neither American motives for getting involved in the war nor this country's actual involvement. What emerges is an accurate portrayal of the deep division in this country over if we should become involved in the European conflict and on which side. There were in fact many famous Americans, such as the founder of Ford Motor Company and Charles Lindbergh, who supported Nazi Germany and its policy, including its eugenics policy. What popular histories of WWII typically fail to mention is that many US states in the 1930s had laws that mirrored German eugenics laws on forced sterilization of the so-called 'feeble minded'. Thus, in its unflinching portrayal of the ugly side of war, it does succeed in raising many of the "what if" questions that deserve thoughtful consideration, but which in our contemporary glorification of the "greatest generation" often get buried.
May 27, 2008
Human Smoke: The Beginnings of WWII, the End of Civilization was a life-changing book for me.
Using an all factual anecdote approach, Baker completely revised my thoughts on how WWII started, especially casting Churchill into a very gray figure and Roosevelt into a much more gray light than had ever been aware of.
He enumerates the many people who opposed the war and sought to minimize the violence and deprivation wreaked on innocent people. This in itself reminded me of how out-of-favor and marginalized pacifists have become in the United States.
For instance, though not from the book, Mothers' Day started out as a mothers for peace holiday. It's not only completely lost that emphasis, but I think people here now would be uncomfortable with it. It is incredibly sad that mothers wanting to keep their children from being killed, maimed, diseased, and starved in war seems to be a fringe sentiment.
Using an all factual anecdote approach, Baker completely revised my thoughts on how WWII started, especially casting Churchill into a very gray figure and Roosevelt into a much more gray light than had ever been aware of.
He enumerates the many people who opposed the war and sought to minimize the violence and deprivation wreaked on innocent people. This in itself reminded me of how out-of-favor and marginalized pacifists have become in the United States.
For instance, though not from the book, Mothers' Day started out as a mothers for peace holiday. It's not only completely lost that emphasis, but I think people here now would be uncomfortable with it. It is incredibly sad that mothers wanting to keep their children from being killed, maimed, diseased, and starved in war seems to be a fringe sentiment.
April 11, 2008
In a series of meticulously researched vignettes ending in December, 1941, Baker sets out to question whether the use of force by the Allies in World War II was actually the best course of action at the time. Accounts of Churchill, Roosevelt, Hitler, and various other prominent parties are occasionally punctuated by mention of pacifists active at the time, from Gandhi to Americans who refused the draft.
Because so many of us unquestioningly accept the heroism of the Allied role in World War II, Baker has been accused of committing horrendous thought crimes in authoring Human Smoke. These include allegedly casting Nazis as moral authorities in order to disparage Churchill (see Adam Kirsch's review in the New York Sun). Nothing could be further from the truth.
Baker takes care to lay out the horrors of the Nazi regime from well before their most heinous acts, taking the reader from an early Goebbels book-burning through the later mass shootings and gassings of the Jews. There is no question in Human Smoke that opposition to the Nazi regime was a moral imperative. The question Baker raises is whether Churchill in particular went about opposing Hitler in the right way.
Baker lays out Churchill's strategies of bombing German civilians in order to lower national morale, and imposing a strict blockade that afflicted with sever hunger only refugees, occupied peoples, and particularly those trying desperately to stay alive in Jewish ghettos. He cites to Churchill's wife as saying Churchill was "bloodthirsty." While there is never a question of who has the moral high ground, Baker suggests that the Allies used their moral high ground in order to move forward with an immoral means of achieving victory. He further suggests that peace would have been a better objective than victory.
Human Smoke also suggests that Roosevelt provoked Japan into attacking the United States in order to get the U.S. into the war. Without addressing this suggestion (because indeed, it is only suggested by the vignettes Baker has chosen to present), the aforementioned New York Sun review argues that Baker "allows the reader to imagine that America sold weapons to China for aggressive purposes, rather than to assist China in resisting Japanese invasion." Once again, this ignores the vignettes of Japan plague-bombing China, dropping bits of bubonic plague-infected material on Chinese civilians (among other Japanese hostilities). What Kirsch doesn't seem to get is that Baker is once again only questioning the inclination to use force as a response to atrocities, not the morality of the atrocities themselves.
Read with a closed mind, Human Smoke may be considered revisionist; read with an open mind, it is clear that the important events are all there--it is only Baker's attitude that is different from most historians. His pacifistic perspective is unfortunately fairly unique as applied to World War II, but one can only hope that it will add to human understanding of one of the greatest tragedies in world history.
For a thoughtful review, see the New York Times.
Because so many of us unquestioningly accept the heroism of the Allied role in World War II, Baker has been accused of committing horrendous thought crimes in authoring Human Smoke. These include allegedly casting Nazis as moral authorities in order to disparage Churchill (see Adam Kirsch's review in the New York Sun). Nothing could be further from the truth.
Baker takes care to lay out the horrors of the Nazi regime from well before their most heinous acts, taking the reader from an early Goebbels book-burning through the later mass shootings and gassings of the Jews. There is no question in Human Smoke that opposition to the Nazi regime was a moral imperative. The question Baker raises is whether Churchill in particular went about opposing Hitler in the right way.
Baker lays out Churchill's strategies of bombing German civilians in order to lower national morale, and imposing a strict blockade that afflicted with sever hunger only refugees, occupied peoples, and particularly those trying desperately to stay alive in Jewish ghettos. He cites to Churchill's wife as saying Churchill was "bloodthirsty." While there is never a question of who has the moral high ground, Baker suggests that the Allies used their moral high ground in order to move forward with an immoral means of achieving victory. He further suggests that peace would have been a better objective than victory.
Human Smoke also suggests that Roosevelt provoked Japan into attacking the United States in order to get the U.S. into the war. Without addressing this suggestion (because indeed, it is only suggested by the vignettes Baker has chosen to present), the aforementioned New York Sun review argues that Baker "allows the reader to imagine that America sold weapons to China for aggressive purposes, rather than to assist China in resisting Japanese invasion." Once again, this ignores the vignettes of Japan plague-bombing China, dropping bits of bubonic plague-infected material on Chinese civilians (among other Japanese hostilities). What Kirsch doesn't seem to get is that Baker is once again only questioning the inclination to use force as a response to atrocities, not the morality of the atrocities themselves.
Read with a closed mind, Human Smoke may be considered revisionist; read with an open mind, it is clear that the important events are all there--it is only Baker's attitude that is different from most historians. His pacifistic perspective is unfortunately fairly unique as applied to World War II, but one can only hope that it will add to human understanding of one of the greatest tragedies in world history.
For a thoughtful review, see the New York Times.
November 10, 2009
This book begins in 1892, with Alfred Nobel saying, "Perhaps my factories will put an end to war even sooner than your congresses [re: World's Peace Conference]. On the day when two army corp may mutually annihilate each other in a second, probably all civilized nations will recoil in horror and disband their troops."
Perhaps not, Nobel! That prediction was a big fat FAIL!
The author then takes us into brief passages in time, quick mention of WW1 and onto the start of WW2. This turns out to be the whole style of the book, vignettes of a sort, glimpses into a person, place and time. There almost seemed to be a formula in place, like, "(Insert name) (insert action) (insert possible results/response to action). It was (insert date)".
I totally expected to read, "Hitler farted and Himmler passed out. It was June, 1940."
The "It was August 1938", "It was June 12, 1940", got very redundant. Each time I read that, Estelle Getty's voice popped into my mind - "Picture it, Sicily, 1921."
The brevity did offer respite from page after page of relentless horrors of war. (I still can't believe people were to told to shoot/gas children/women/fellow human beings and they just went ahead and fucking did it! THEY DID IT! What the hell?)
The people and deeds varied, and the author combined an interesting mix of private journals and letters, newspaper articles and gives a different approach to stories on the war.
The author stops the book on December 31, 1941. (yes, I know the title says "the beginnings of...")
However, this tweaks me for a multitude of reasons:
1. no mention of the of Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
2. no coverage of D-day (yes, that's been done in a thousand other books)
3. missed the deaths of millions of Jews in concentration camps between 1942 to the end of the war.
That to me, seems like a whole lot of Human Smoke.
It seems like the beginnings of WW2 were more like "Human Kindling" or "Human Tinder".
Perhaps not, Nobel! That prediction was a big fat FAIL!
The author then takes us into brief passages in time, quick mention of WW1 and onto the start of WW2. This turns out to be the whole style of the book, vignettes of a sort, glimpses into a person, place and time. There almost seemed to be a formula in place, like, "(Insert name) (insert action) (insert possible results/response to action). It was (insert date)".
I totally expected to read, "Hitler farted and Himmler passed out. It was June, 1940."
The "It was August 1938", "It was June 12, 1940", got very redundant. Each time I read that, Estelle Getty's voice popped into my mind - "Picture it, Sicily, 1921."
The brevity did offer respite from page after page of relentless horrors of war. (I still can't believe people were to told to shoot/gas children/women/fellow human beings and they just went ahead and fucking did it! THEY DID IT! What the hell?)
The people and deeds varied, and the author combined an interesting mix of private journals and letters, newspaper articles and gives a different approach to stories on the war.
The author stops the book on December 31, 1941. (yes, I know the title says "the beginnings of...")
However, this tweaks me for a multitude of reasons:
1. no mention of the of Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
2. no coverage of D-day (yes, that's been done in a thousand other books)
3. missed the deaths of millions of Jews in concentration camps between 1942 to the end of the war.
That to me, seems like a whole lot of Human Smoke.
It seems like the beginnings of WW2 were more like "Human Kindling" or "Human Tinder".
September 12, 2010
At least as an audio book, this latest from Nicholson Baker is a total bust. Baker turns his detail-obsessed myopic little eyes to a very interesting question: Was pacifism a reasonable response to WWII, and were there any pacifists speaking up at the time? This are very difficult questions. A mature author, experienced in history and rhetoric, writing in a straightforward and persuasive manner, would have a very hard time addressing this topic. Alas, Baker has three problems:
1) His book is a series of quotes and fragments of historical detail. Each shard of history is *followed* by the date. As if the fragmentation weren't challenging enough, we don't know what we're really listening to until it's over.
2) I was listening to these exasperating fragments, rather than reading them. If Baker presents me with a book comprising the dust bunnies swept from under the bed of history, it'd be helpful at least to look at them.
3) Baker is a remarkable observer and writer. As a philosopher or historian, however, he can never see the forest for the trees. More typically he can't see the trees for the microbes living in the lichen on them. This terminal myopia is charming in his first and best novel, "The Mezzanine", but even in that tiny novel about a 30-second escalator ride, Baker's lack of scope is irritating. When he hefts as great a question as this, this far-blindedness becomes a crime.
Summary: unlistenable.
1) His book is a series of quotes and fragments of historical detail. Each shard of history is *followed* by the date. As if the fragmentation weren't challenging enough, we don't know what we're really listening to until it's over.
2) I was listening to these exasperating fragments, rather than reading them. If Baker presents me with a book comprising the dust bunnies swept from under the bed of history, it'd be helpful at least to look at them.
3) Baker is a remarkable observer and writer. As a philosopher or historian, however, he can never see the forest for the trees. More typically he can't see the trees for the microbes living in the lichen on them. This terminal myopia is charming in his first and best novel, "The Mezzanine", but even in that tiny novel about a 30-second escalator ride, Baker's lack of scope is irritating. When he hefts as great a question as this, this far-blindedness becomes a crime.
Summary: unlistenable.
June 10, 2015
Less a work of historiography than a moving complex and powerful prose poem about world war two and whether it could or should be avoided. One of Baker's most beautiful books, whatever you think of his conclusions (and, being Baker, the book as a whole is far more nuanced and inconclusive than any simple "answer" could be).
May 31, 2020
Concisely done in snippets, this book recounts the history of WW2 up to February 1942. The majority of the sources are from the New York Times and the BBC. I was disappointed to read the anti-Semitic words of Eleanor Roosevelt. All in all, a very interesting read.
May 25, 2018
WWII from alternative angle. Well worth the read. Thought provoking and interesting. (Especially in these days while waiting for Trump.)
September 22, 2017
A big messy book, one that took me a while to read since like 600 pages, doing it in dribs and drabs daily (easy since each page is another step towards the Holocaust starting in 1892 in a very formulaic manner--"It was July 4, 1933", etc). I was actually reading this book when Charlottesville happened and comparing the Nazis today with the Nazis then is easy--nothing has really changed. If you are trying to find a super depressing book, well look no further, because this is it. I've put off this review for almost a month just because after reading this, I have so much to say on the topic and almost nothing at all at the same time.
It champions the pacificists and the author "I dedicate this book to the memory of the Clarence Pickett and other American and British pacifists. They failed but they were right" and dear god is this book complicated--they failed because they failed completely. Everyone is a monster basically. Eleanor Roosevelt, I feel the author cherry picked a letter from 1918 with a bad party containing "mostly Jews"--ignoring everything else she did later in life (though her transformation from complacent wife & mother to human rights advocate happened later--and if that's the worst you can find from her writings well...), FDR freaking out that too many Jews at his alma mater and making sure there were quotas, Churchill who comes off as a bloodthirsty maniac, chortling on how the crowds were buying his pro-war bombast in a sucker born every minute moment ("That got the sods, eh?!"), Gandhi cozeying up to Hitler--and hell even the victims themselves.
Reading how one Jewish Dutchman counseled his friend that their option was to just placidly kill themselves with no worry, because Anti-Semitism and Nazism would only last 5 generations so just shoot yourself and hope for a better morrow, or Gandhi with his 2 generation nonsense--look at the Civil War, that's been 6 generations with no let up on the hatred--look at just history--2 generations, 5, 10, 100--evil and stupidity know no bounds, and just dying and hoping that in like 75 years people will feel bad and know better seems dumb. I think of my cousin who teaches High School English remarking that her very best student upon reading Anne Frank's Diary reaction was a basic /meh. Too long ago, doesn't affect her at all, and had no sympathy. My cousin was horrified and I think about that kid now. For me, reading Anne Frank's Diary was a watershed moment as a child, where each time I read it, I hoped for a different ending. That no scary novel or movie or imaginative nightmare could ever equal the sheer horror of real life. I have no idea how you can read that book and not be moved, unless a total sociopath. I remember Holocaust survivors coming to my school & the JCC to talk about what happened and the faded tattoos. My grandparents completely changed by the War. My copy of Night is autographed by Elie Wiesel when I saw him as a teenager speak. I don't know how it's impossible not to care.
I also don't know how it's impossible to NOT fight back, which is what this book champions. Granted, it's a book extolling pacifism, but to a self harming degree--one that both expects and praises laying down, putting your head on the chopping block or killing yourself and dying for a better future/cause, but by showing how EVERYONE is terrible--well what's the point of that? It ends with 1941 when the horror got seriously underway, and I think it almost has to. You can't carry on the pacifism/turn the other cheek really past that without some major dissembling or masochism taken to an extreme level.
Leaving aside the obvious polemics of this book and how it feels like many of the testimonials have been especially chosen to show ALL SIDES BAD. Gandhi recommending England to surrender: "Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. If these gentleman choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them." There's nothing the Nazis would have loved more than that! I think if there's a state run media or an indifferent complacent populace, then what's the point of laying down en masse and dying--no one will know or care, especially if they root for your deaths, which is what the other half of the book covers. The growing coarsening and grossness of public opinion which is where this book shines (and lots of spooky resonances for the present--people in 1930 would have thought the Holocaust was a laughable fantasy). If every minority now in US prisons was taken out and shot, you would have 25% of our populace cheering the fact and a large part of media willing cover that up. So many testimonials and news reports I had never read before--the creep of evil where slowly but surely (again starting from 1892 to 1941) of history where the unthinkable became not just doable but mass orchestrated by millions.
And once again this book puts to rest the myth of "We didn't know"--because they knew, everyone knew--the many, many testimonials in this book bear it out, the sermons, the headlines, or in the taunts of "children call each other names and say, "You'll be sent to the baking oven." This book has far too many references to the mass murders of disabled people or hey! where did all the Jews go (not to Madagascar, which I never knew was a cover for concentration camps), and the press responses. If people had no clue what was going on they willfully shut their eyes and ignored it, much like we do today with the many atrocities across the globe. What do we make of the people then? What do we make of us now?
However, leaving aside polemics, this book shed light on a lot of things I had no idea about, events currently in news today (well "in news" debatable--it's there, we just don't look)--like Yemen for example. I've shuddered at the pictures of starving children in Yemen in news lately and wondered why our government is helping Saudi Arabia with that, or hell just more in depth news on what is going on there, but hey! Here is 1934, with the RAF practicing dropping bombs on Yemen tribesmen, which helped out 9 years later as practice for bombing Germany. I didn't realize about UK vs. Iraq in 1941 where "RAF flight instructors and their cadets made almost two hundred flights over the Iraqis on the plateau" or in 1920 when Churchill advised to use on Iraqi tribes "I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. Most of those gassed wouldn't have serious permanent effects." I didn't realize how much of the 1920s and 1930s, US & UK did aerial bombing runs on the Middle East & India/Pakistan, a lot of it training wise, solely murdering for experience.
There is a lot in this book about the America First (gross Lindbergh "If only we could be on the right side!") movement, semi-enabled by the Quakers and those who didn't see the point in interfering in a European war--genuine noble pacifists and extreme racists coupled together in ensuring that boatloads of children and refugees got turned back to Europe. Now the same America First people are in charge and reading those passages are sickening, especially considering how now there are more displaced people fleeing strife since WW2, and once again a populace unwilling to provide refuge. No easy answers in this book, no matter how hard the author pushes pacifism--and whether you are pro-punching Nazis or are willing to have them punch you--I think ultimately up to each individual person reading this.
It champions the pacificists and the author "I dedicate this book to the memory of the Clarence Pickett and other American and British pacifists. They failed but they were right" and dear god is this book complicated--they failed because they failed completely. Everyone is a monster basically. Eleanor Roosevelt, I feel the author cherry picked a letter from 1918 with a bad party containing "mostly Jews"--ignoring everything else she did later in life (though her transformation from complacent wife & mother to human rights advocate happened later--and if that's the worst you can find from her writings well...), FDR freaking out that too many Jews at his alma mater and making sure there were quotas, Churchill who comes off as a bloodthirsty maniac, chortling on how the crowds were buying his pro-war bombast in a sucker born every minute moment ("That got the sods, eh?!"), Gandhi cozeying up to Hitler--and hell even the victims themselves.
Reading how one Jewish Dutchman counseled his friend that their option was to just placidly kill themselves with no worry, because Anti-Semitism and Nazism would only last 5 generations so just shoot yourself and hope for a better morrow, or Gandhi with his 2 generation nonsense--look at the Civil War, that's been 6 generations with no let up on the hatred--look at just history--2 generations, 5, 10, 100--evil and stupidity know no bounds, and just dying and hoping that in like 75 years people will feel bad and know better seems dumb. I think of my cousin who teaches High School English remarking that her very best student upon reading Anne Frank's Diary reaction was a basic /meh. Too long ago, doesn't affect her at all, and had no sympathy. My cousin was horrified and I think about that kid now. For me, reading Anne Frank's Diary was a watershed moment as a child, where each time I read it, I hoped for a different ending. That no scary novel or movie or imaginative nightmare could ever equal the sheer horror of real life. I have no idea how you can read that book and not be moved, unless a total sociopath. I remember Holocaust survivors coming to my school & the JCC to talk about what happened and the faded tattoos. My grandparents completely changed by the War. My copy of Night is autographed by Elie Wiesel when I saw him as a teenager speak. I don't know how it's impossible not to care.
I also don't know how it's impossible to NOT fight back, which is what this book champions. Granted, it's a book extolling pacifism, but to a self harming degree--one that both expects and praises laying down, putting your head on the chopping block or killing yourself and dying for a better future/cause, but by showing how EVERYONE is terrible--well what's the point of that? It ends with 1941 when the horror got seriously underway, and I think it almost has to. You can't carry on the pacifism/turn the other cheek really past that without some major dissembling or masochism taken to an extreme level.
Leaving aside the obvious polemics of this book and how it feels like many of the testimonials have been especially chosen to show ALL SIDES BAD. Gandhi recommending England to surrender: "Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. If these gentleman choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them." There's nothing the Nazis would have loved more than that! I think if there's a state run media or an indifferent complacent populace, then what's the point of laying down en masse and dying--no one will know or care, especially if they root for your deaths, which is what the other half of the book covers. The growing coarsening and grossness of public opinion which is where this book shines (and lots of spooky resonances for the present--people in 1930 would have thought the Holocaust was a laughable fantasy). If every minority now in US prisons was taken out and shot, you would have 25% of our populace cheering the fact and a large part of media willing cover that up. So many testimonials and news reports I had never read before--the creep of evil where slowly but surely (again starting from 1892 to 1941) of history where the unthinkable became not just doable but mass orchestrated by millions.
And once again this book puts to rest the myth of "We didn't know"--because they knew, everyone knew--the many, many testimonials in this book bear it out, the sermons, the headlines, or in the taunts of "children call each other names and say, "You'll be sent to the baking oven." This book has far too many references to the mass murders of disabled people or hey! where did all the Jews go (not to Madagascar, which I never knew was a cover for concentration camps), and the press responses. If people had no clue what was going on they willfully shut their eyes and ignored it, much like we do today with the many atrocities across the globe. What do we make of the people then? What do we make of us now?
However, leaving aside polemics, this book shed light on a lot of things I had no idea about, events currently in news today (well "in news" debatable--it's there, we just don't look)--like Yemen for example. I've shuddered at the pictures of starving children in Yemen in news lately and wondered why our government is helping Saudi Arabia with that, or hell just more in depth news on what is going on there, but hey! Here is 1934, with the RAF practicing dropping bombs on Yemen tribesmen, which helped out 9 years later as practice for bombing Germany. I didn't realize about UK vs. Iraq in 1941 where "RAF flight instructors and their cadets made almost two hundred flights over the Iraqis on the plateau" or in 1920 when Churchill advised to use on Iraqi tribes "I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. Most of those gassed wouldn't have serious permanent effects." I didn't realize how much of the 1920s and 1930s, US & UK did aerial bombing runs on the Middle East & India/Pakistan, a lot of it training wise, solely murdering for experience.
There is a lot in this book about the America First (gross Lindbergh "If only we could be on the right side!") movement, semi-enabled by the Quakers and those who didn't see the point in interfering in a European war--genuine noble pacifists and extreme racists coupled together in ensuring that boatloads of children and refugees got turned back to Europe. Now the same America First people are in charge and reading those passages are sickening, especially considering how now there are more displaced people fleeing strife since WW2, and once again a populace unwilling to provide refuge. No easy answers in this book, no matter how hard the author pushes pacifism--and whether you are pro-punching Nazis or are willing to have them punch you--I think ultimately up to each individual person reading this.
September 14, 2018
А вот это уже совсем хорошая альтернативная история ХХ века — гениальный Бейкер излагает ее в исторических анекдотах и не всегда широко известных цитатах, подобранных, конечно, не то чтобы тенденциозно (в чем его упрекали недалекие критик), а просто по теме. Тема проста: война — это плохо, пацифизм — хорошо, убивать людей, тем более массово, или одобрять убийство людей в любой форме и с любыми целями — плохо. И т.д. И это, я должен сказать, весьма впечатляет, хотя, казалось бы, что тут нового можно нарыть. Можно. Бейкер не ограничивается Европой, а затрагивает английские геноциды в Африке и Азии, а также непростые отношения Китая и Японии. Мюнхенский сговор, пакт Молотова-Риббентропа, холокост или сталинские голодомор и чистки — просто самые известные вершины, но Бейкер копается в том, что их вызвало, и тут все гораздо, гораздо хуже. Любая власть античеловечна, говорит нам он, и «западные демократии» здесь ничем не лучше отвратительных германских и советских режимов.
Ясно, что это позиция нормального человека, и книга у него — действительно о конце всего человеческого в ХХ веке. Сейчас мы, похоже, живем на руинах человечности, стараясь восстановить хоть что-то — в себе и обществе. Получается, надо сказать, не очень.
Ясно, что это позиция нормального человека, и книга у него — действительно о конце всего человеческого в ХХ веке. Сейчас мы, похоже, живем на руинах человечности, стараясь восстановить хоть что-то — в себе и обществе. Получается, надо сказать, не очень.
September 15, 2022
This is a fascinating book that reads somewhat like a nonfiction version of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. Through patient short historical snippets, Baker narrates the years leading up through the beginnings of WWII, ending just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and entry of the USA into the war. His argument, mostly implicit, is that violence begot more violence and that the war was a tragic mistake. He sides with the pacifists, Gandhi perhaps most famous of them. Gandhi argued that Churchillism—essentially, vengeful bombing of civilians—was nearly as bad as Hitlerism. Baker's account ends just after Roosevelt has at last committed the US to direct participation in the war. The book defamiliarizes this history with a pointillistic style that makes readers feel as if they're living these events day by ominous day.
January 27, 2018
I was curious to read a pacifist's take on the beginning of the war, but while I obviously agree that WWII was less black and white than traditional mythology holds, this was completely unconvincing. "All the world leaders were equally terrible and Hitler would have died eventually so whatever" is neither true nor well-reasoned, and a lot of this seemed so naive that it just made me roll my eyes.
March 23, 2009
Uttterly brilliant so far (66 pages). Like Galeano's trilogy from decades ago
December 7, 2016
An amazing book. I give copies of this friends (and Friends (Quakers). I love it.
April 22, 2021
Human smoke is extremely well written and presented in a totally unique manner. The story of humanity's descent into madness is told through nearly 500 pages of vignettes, I immediately grew a liking to this format, more people should use it.
Baker also confronts the reader with some uncomfortable facts about the second world war, particularly when it comes to the allies.
However, human smoke is very blatantly trying to push a narrative. Whilst containing few outright falsehoods, the selection of vignettes is at least highly selective.
This is not an attempt at telling an objective story about how the horror show that was WW2 came about.
If someone who is not well informed on the second world war, he or she could come away with a very distorted picture of WW2 after reading this book.
When talking about Mers el Kabir for example, Baker doesn't go into why that attack happened, just merely that it did and was horrible.
He's also trying to convince his audience that if it weren't for the British blockade that the Germans might have gone through with the Madagascar plan, thus largely preventing the Holocaust.
This is very doubtful to begin with, but even if it happened and succeeded, those several million Jews now transplanted to a tropical island of the coast of Africa would die in droves either of tropical disease or famine. Whoever survived that, would get to live in a nazi-controlled slave state.
So I can't give Baker more than 3 stars here, human smoke is very persuasive, but ultimately deceptive.
Still worth reading for people who already know lots about the subject and can see through that deception.
Baker also confronts the reader with some uncomfortable facts about the second world war, particularly when it comes to the allies.
However, human smoke is very blatantly trying to push a narrative. Whilst containing few outright falsehoods, the selection of vignettes is at least highly selective.
This is not an attempt at telling an objective story about how the horror show that was WW2 came about.
If someone who is not well informed on the second world war, he or she could come away with a very distorted picture of WW2 after reading this book.
When talking about Mers el Kabir for example, Baker doesn't go into why that attack happened, just merely that it did and was horrible.
He's also trying to convince his audience that if it weren't for the British blockade that the Germans might have gone through with the Madagascar plan, thus largely preventing the Holocaust.
This is very doubtful to begin with, but even if it happened and succeeded, those several million Jews now transplanted to a tropical island of the coast of Africa would die in droves either of tropical disease or famine. Whoever survived that, would get to live in a nazi-controlled slave state.
So I can't give Baker more than 3 stars here, human smoke is very persuasive, but ultimately deceptive.
Still worth reading for people who already know lots about the subject and can see through that deception.
October 8, 2021
A chronological account from the western perspective of the run up to World War II.
December 26, 2010
About 500 pages of one-to-three-paragraph-long notes about the beginning of World War II and the Holocaust, each about a particular event on a single day, ending on December 31, 1941: summarized diary entries, newspaper articles, letters and so on; the bibliography lists about 400 books. Almost all the notes are about Germany, Great Britain and the United States; the Soviet Union gets almost nary a mention. Baker seems guilty for the Anglo-American civilization, and hateful of its leaders Roosevelt and Churchill; Churchill comes out as an immature bloodthirsty warmongering match for Hitler, and Roosevelt an anti-Semitic snob. Many notes have to do with the American military (naval and air) buildup in the 1930s, but almost none with the German military buildup and none with the Soviet and Japanese ones; if this were the only book about World War II you read, you would think that the American buildup was only brought about by the military-industrial complex, and not the international situation. Also many notes are about the Americans selling arms to China, and training Chinese pilots; Baker does not clearly indicate that this was for fighting Japanese aggression against China, and not for committing aggression against Japan. Also many notes are about the Americans and the British not admitting enough Jewish refugees from the Nazis; this was bad, but it was in no way comparable to the Nazi slaughter of the Jews. Yes, Churchill and Roosevelt worked to bring the United States into war, which is what many of Baker's notes are about. I am very glad they did. My paternal grandfather fought in the war on the Eastern front; perhaps a German soldier killed by an American GI would have killed him, if the United States had stayed out of the war. A German plane bombed the train with my maternal grandmother and her sister, but they both ran away and survived; perhaps another plane would have strafed and killed them, but the factory that would have made it was damaged by Anglo-American bombers. Also some of Baker's notes have to do with German peace proposals that were rejected by the British. I am also very glad they were. None of my relatives that I am aware of were killed in the Holocaust, but if Germany had to fight a one-front war with the Soviet Union, who knows if it might not have won it - and then carry out the Final Solution throughout the entire Soviet territory.
Baker seems to admire American pacifists and Jeanette Rankin, the only Congressperson to vote against America's entry into World War II after Pearl Harbor. In the afterword Baker asks, if World War II was a good war and helped anyone it was supposed to help. I was reminded of George Orwell's conversation with a pacifist. If Germany had won the war in Europe, or taken over Europe without a war, as it had taken over Czechoslovakia, it would not have invaded the Americas, so Baker would have been as entitled to his freedom to reject or accept pacifism, and write books promoting his point of view, as he is now, but Western Europeans would not have been so fortunate (and Eastern Europeans and Russians? They get almost nary a mention in Baker's book).
Baker seems to admire American pacifists and Jeanette Rankin, the only Congressperson to vote against America's entry into World War II after Pearl Harbor. In the afterword Baker asks, if World War II was a good war and helped anyone it was supposed to help. I was reminded of George Orwell's conversation with a pacifist. If Germany had won the war in Europe, or taken over Europe without a war, as it had taken over Czechoslovakia, it would not have invaded the Americas, so Baker would have been as entitled to his freedom to reject or accept pacifism, and write books promoting his point of view, as he is now, but Western Europeans would not have been so fortunate (and Eastern Europeans and Russians? They get almost nary a mention in Baker's book).
March 27, 2010
an unconventional take on the genesis of world war II. To date, the most persuasive argument of the existence of "war fever", a hard to prove, but well documented part of the human experience.
He redefined Churchill and FDR for me and despite the horrors of the nazi regime made a strong case for Hitler initially trying to contain the scope of war.
Ironically, or not, the injection of the "peace" focused elements of the book from gandhi's ridiculousness on had the opposite effect I think was intended. While i was surprised to find there was as much activism at that time as there was it remained the infective hand wringing of "higher" selves who refuse to live in the animal world we currently occupy. The addition of their point of view added to my feeling that they offer nothing useful in avoiding war, or dealing with aggression.
the simple truth of life is that we are animals competing for resources. and the cost is often conflict and death. This is natural and the violence is built into the system for a reason.
To suggest we can simply wait out tyranny and aggression as no dictator, or violent regime can last is both naive and the very height of human hubris--wherein we use consciousness to elevate ourselves beyond the struggles and realities every other animal on the planet deals with daily.
In a perfect world we'd find ways to prevent greed and war-mongering to define our political experience but we don't live in that world as well documented by FDR all but flying japanese fighter planes into Pearl Harbor himself. he set the table on every front for that attack, and then used it to turn America into a global super power.
and in doing so, gave Americans a wonder of false moral imperative unparalleled till 9/11, and simultaneously set them on course to have decades of affluence to complain and suffer existential angst about.
the real downside of this book for me was that it likely ruined band of brothers for me. I liked the romantic US approved myth it fed me and I can no longer be roused by it.
He redefined Churchill and FDR for me and despite the horrors of the nazi regime made a strong case for Hitler initially trying to contain the scope of war.
Ironically, or not, the injection of the "peace" focused elements of the book from gandhi's ridiculousness on had the opposite effect I think was intended. While i was surprised to find there was as much activism at that time as there was it remained the infective hand wringing of "higher" selves who refuse to live in the animal world we currently occupy. The addition of their point of view added to my feeling that they offer nothing useful in avoiding war, or dealing with aggression.
the simple truth of life is that we are animals competing for resources. and the cost is often conflict and death. This is natural and the violence is built into the system for a reason.
To suggest we can simply wait out tyranny and aggression as no dictator, or violent regime can last is both naive and the very height of human hubris--wherein we use consciousness to elevate ourselves beyond the struggles and realities every other animal on the planet deals with daily.
In a perfect world we'd find ways to prevent greed and war-mongering to define our political experience but we don't live in that world as well documented by FDR all but flying japanese fighter planes into Pearl Harbor himself. he set the table on every front for that attack, and then used it to turn America into a global super power.
and in doing so, gave Americans a wonder of false moral imperative unparalleled till 9/11, and simultaneously set them on course to have decades of affluence to complain and suffer existential angst about.
the real downside of this book for me was that it likely ruined band of brothers for me. I liked the romantic US approved myth it fed me and I can no longer be roused by it.
January 15, 2019
Pacifism is worth fighting for. And, in the form of non-violent civil resistance under democratically inclined regimes, it works. Human Smoke considers the beginning of World War II through this lens, revisiting efforts to avert the war. It makes the case that the war should have been and, more importantly, could have been avoided.
In this naive and searching book, Nicholson Baker relinquishes his editorial voice in order to deflect criticism from this implicit argument. Instead of making direct claims supported by historical evidence, he amalgamates anecdote into a chronological narrative, an official "history" told from primary sources. Don't complain to Baker that his claims are wrong, take it up with the sources that recorded events and the people who wrote them.
Much of Baker's book rests on depicting the hypocrisy of the Allied powers. In turns, he depicts the anti-Semitism of Eleanor Roosevelt, Winston Churchill's bloodthirst, and the rearmament that Franklin Roosevelt undertook in the lead up to Pearl Harbor. "See the similarity between these figures and Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini?" the book winkingly asks.
Elsewhere, Baker considers the merits of violent resistance. After he dryly recounts the assassination of a Nazi commander in German-occupied Nantes by French partisans, he observes, "The Germans shot fifty French hostages in reprisal" (411). Baker reduces violent resistance to immediate utilitarian calculation; he cannot consider it an effort for long-term self-preservation---even self-actualization.
Early in the book, Baker recounts an exchange:
What about millions?
In this naive and searching book, Nicholson Baker relinquishes his editorial voice in order to deflect criticism from this implicit argument. Instead of making direct claims supported by historical evidence, he amalgamates anecdote into a chronological narrative, an official "history" told from primary sources. Don't complain to Baker that his claims are wrong, take it up with the sources that recorded events and the people who wrote them.
Much of Baker's book rests on depicting the hypocrisy of the Allied powers. In turns, he depicts the anti-Semitism of Eleanor Roosevelt, Winston Churchill's bloodthirst, and the rearmament that Franklin Roosevelt undertook in the lead up to Pearl Harbor. "See the similarity between these figures and Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini?" the book winkingly asks.
Elsewhere, Baker considers the merits of violent resistance. After he dryly recounts the assassination of a Nazi commander in German-occupied Nantes by French partisans, he observes, "The Germans shot fifty French hostages in reprisal" (411). Baker reduces violent resistance to immediate utilitarian calculation; he cannot consider it an effort for long-term self-preservation---even self-actualization.
Early in the book, Baker recounts an exchange:
Gandhi answered a letter from Hayim Greenberg, who edited the Jewish Frontier, a liberal Zionist newspaper in New York. Greenberg pointed out that in Germany, a Jewish Gandhi would last about five minutes before he was executed.
"That will not disprove my case," Gandhi replied. "I can conceive the necessity of the immolation of hundreds, if not thousands, to appease the hunger of dictators." (122)
What about millions?
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