Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(24)

 

 

Nicholson Baker has never shunned controversy. His two most infamous books of fiction, "The Fermata" and "Vox," evoke a continuum of reactions ranging from morbid curiosity to recoiling disgust. The latter exposed him to the masses when Monica Lewinsky admitted giving a copy to then President Clinton. But Baker's range extends beyond novels. An interest in history also pervades his oeuvre. "Lumber," an earlier essay, explored etymology. On a much grander scale, "Human Smoke" traces threads of history through selective documented events and an aphoristic, almost Nietzschean, style. Beginning in 1892, with a tiny passage concerning Alfred Nobel's dynamite, the book juxtaposes European war and racial policies and attitudes with the effect these policies had on society at large through December 31, 1941. The book has an agenda. It attempts to depict the events of World War II's early years through a different filter. Via this technique this textual collage constructs an alternate history. One that, in many ways, does not always gel with mainstream ideas of the twentieth century's bloodiest conflict. With this interpretation, Baker once again delves deep into controversy.

The first 10 pages already reveal an atypical World War II story. Shocking anti-semitic actions by Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt mingle with tales of pacifists and theater crowds screaming hate at images of Wilhelm II. Winston Churchill takes on a rather brutal hawkish character throughout the entire book. As the story progresses, war gets painted as a near inevitability based on the actions, and even desires, of European and American leaders. Within this context, the air bombings exchanged by England and Germany throughout 1941 take on a shade of ridiculous game playing. As major cities become more and more ravaged, the citizenry's attitudes progress from concerned empathy to rabid vengeance. Baker depicts Churchill as desiring more bombardments to hasten America's entry into the war. The Roosevelt administration is seen as goading Japan into war, which culminated at Pearl Harbor. American pacts with the Chinese, military encirclement, and an oil embargo get cited as examples. Hitler and the Nazis remain monsters. But concerning the holocaust, this book also puts blood on the hands of the English and Americans. In the 1940s, America only accepted a certain amount of Jewish immigration, so the vast amount of refugees had nowhere to go. Late in the book such policies become a part of the slaughter of Jews throughout Europe. Grisly tales of early Nazi killing machines and executions of children and infants increase the grimace factor to breaking point. Ultimately, the book tries to show that none of the war's participants remain blameless for the huge loss of life. It also tries to evoke the questions "did it have to happen?" and "could it have been stopped?" Some "what-ifs" also appear. Did Chamberlain's Munich agreement with Hitler squelch a possible 1938 overthrow plot by German generals? Could the war have ended there?

A question undoubtedly arises as the pages flap by: how "correct" is this interpretation? Has Baker simply selected and arranged events to serve a pacifist agenda? Was World War II all out meaningless and fully preventable slaughter? Such deconstruction remains in the hands of readers and experts. Nonetheless, Baker does cite his sources section by section and page by page in the voluminous "notes" section. As always, some will find the arrangement convincing and others will not. Baker's question in the afterword, "Was it a 'good war?'" remains a worthwhile question regardless, if for no other reason than studies in future prevention. "Human Smoke," with its ominous title and wispy cover art, will get anyone interested in World War II frantically turning pages. By all accounts it remains a great read. Perhaps it even adds a new viewpoint, or adds texture to mainstream accounts. Or perhaps many will discredit it as contrived antiwar propaganda. In either case it will inspire thought and reflection on our race of inexorable killing machines.

"Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization", best-selling author Baker's first work of non-fiction, is a history of the buildup to World War II as told via snippets from newspapers, personal diaries, memoirs, etc. Baker provides a minimum of personal interjections or opinions along the way, preferring instead to let the chosen selections speak for themselves. The end result is a grim and depressing narrative that shows the breaking out of World War II as the inevitable conclusion of the machinations of American industrialists looking for new markets in Asia and Europe, Roosevelt's desires to impose his visions of an Anglo-American order upon the world, and, particularly, Winston Churchill's ruthless and bloodthirsty pursuit of a wider and more devastating war.

It needs to be said by the reviewer and, hopefully, known by the reader that Baker is emphatically not a historian. The text itself and post-release interviews with Baker himself indicate that the author had a thesis in his head before the book was written, and the material presented is that which most strongly supports it. The result is a tale of a haunting descent into both total war and industrial holocaust that, possibly, could have been, if not avoided, at least mitigated, had the men in power simply had the moral fiber to choose differently.

This book is going to appeal strongly to a certain subset of readers that wish to believe that capitalism, anti-semitism, etc., were stronger factors in the outbreak of World War II than, say, fascism and national socialism. The supposed anti-semitism of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt gets almost as much ink as that of the Nazis, particularly as it involves the USA's (along with most every other nation on the planet) unwillingness to take in more Jewish refugees than our immigration laws at the time allowed. Likewise, the push by American aircraft manufacturers to design and sell new warplanes to all and sundry in the 30's, even though the total figures involved come out to about 100 planes total throughout the pre-1939 period, gets more consideration as a cause of the increasing belligerence and actual combat around the globe than does the considerably more gigantic buildup of the fascist and Soviet militaries during the same time.

Likewise, a lot of pages and ink are given over to the pronunciamentos and goals of various pacifist movements through the first decades of the 20th Century, with the clear subtext of "had we listened to them, the war would never have started, or at least not been as vicious". While there is much to be said for studying the pacifist movement prior to and during the start of World War II, there is little to be said for believing for an instant that, had Churchill or Roosevelt just listened more closely to the them, Hitler and Tojo would've somehow been less warlike as a result.

That leads to the biggest problem of the book; it's _incredibly_ biased. All histories are, to some extent, a reflection of the author's biases, sure. However, the lack of any context being provided here would lead the uneducated reader to assume that the viciousness of the war itself and the Holocaust need not have happened as they did. The lack of much editorial context by the author actually serves to reinforce this aspect; the reader has no guide as to why Baker chose a given text in the first place. The reader, if not Baker's argument, would actually be better served if Nicholson had chosen to provide more editorial context for his selections. At least that way, the pro-pacifist, anti-Churchillian bias of the author would be a known quantity instead of something just hinted at.

The obvious counter-argument can be made that, well: these ARE Churchill and Roosevelt's and Chennault's own words, are they not? Sure, they are. However, the context that would clearly show that these men were emphatically NOT the primary actors driving the events of the era is simply not there. We hear much of the bloodthirsty-ness of Churchill, Bomber Harris, etc. The comparable and considerably more voluminous and damning words of the Hitlers and Mussolinis of the era are much less present.

When they are present at all, they've been chosen to show the rare moments when these men were hoping for an end to the war they had started (so long as it ended on their terms and with their bloody conquests already made allowed to be kept).

While a very engrossing and emotionally effective (and affecting) read, I could not recommend "Human Smoke" to anyone whom I was not already aware of possessing a clear understanding of how World War II came to be. While the study of pacifism in the 30's and early 40's has its merits, the conclusion that it would have been effective had just certain men in the West been willing to listen to it, is unsupportable.

The title of Nicholson Baker's book is evocative. Most obviously, it's an allusion to the horrible destructiveness of war, which renders human lives as fragile as smoke. Baker tells us (p. 474) that he got the title from Franz Halder, who once said that the smoke arising from Auschwitz was "human smoke."

At another level, though, "human smoke" refers to the fog of war--or, in this case, the fog of the run-up to World War II--as well as the intentional and unintentional smokescreens, or myths, that hide the complex network of responsibility for war. It's to Baker's great credit that his book invites readers to think long and hard about both the human cost and the myth-making that justifies war.

World War II is the test case focused on by Baker, and for obvious reasons. It's styled the "good war," and in most everyone's minds the good guys and the bad guys were clearly, unarguably distinct. But Baker shows, horrifyingly, that the anti-Semitism that exploded in Germany was an integral part of the thinking of both citizens and leaders in other countries. The Roosevelts in America and Churchill in England, for example, penned some pretty nasty things about Jews. In the late 30s, when the fate of German Jews was becoming increasingly obvious, country after country refused to accept them as refugees. All of this is documented with stark clarity by Baker.

An arms race was going on among all of the major players, Axis as well as Allies, in the run-up to the war. The U.S. was consolidating military strength in the Pacific, a move that angered and threatened the Japanese. Britain and the U.S. were building and selling airplanes to other nations, includng Japan and Germany. Sabres were being rattled everywhere, and only some of them were in response to the growing German threat.

The new weapons of war were being tested nonstop, and often against "barbarians" and "savages." The British tested incendiary bombs against Arabs, the Germans tested their weapons against Spaniards, the Italians tried theirs out on the Ethiopians, the Japanese against the Chinese, and the U.S. sold its weapons to all four nations and observed from afar.

In the midst of all this, concerned citizens from the U.S., Britain, France, and Germany were denouncing the arms race, the racism, and the national chauvinism, and pleading for peace. There was actually a bill in the U.S. Congress to amend the Constitution to say that war could be entered into only after a national referendum (p. 78). American Quakers, led especially by Rufus Jones and Clarence Pickett, organized relief agencies and lobbied the American, British, and German governments for peace. All to no avail, however. The powers wanted war, and war was what they got.

To read Baker's book is a harrowing experience. Criticisms that it selectively presents evidence miss the mark. Baker is revealing a side of history that almost never gets told. Criticisms that it preaches pacifism seem to come from ideological convictions, not from an honest wrestling with the story Baker tells. And that story is that geo-political realities leading up to war are simply too complex to reduce to simplistic "good guy-bad guy" explanations. That kind of binary thinking prepares the way for wars, and it justifies the victors after they're over.

Several reviewers here have suggested that Baker should stick to fiction. Unfortunately, he has.

The number of misrepresentations and omissions render this work bankrupt of serious scholarship. What is so disheartening is to read how many positive reviewers on this site have had their world view changed by Baker's presentation of the "facts."

Baker cites remarks by Churchill in March, 1940, on mining Norway's waters as provoking a German invasion. "There had been no plans in Berlin for an invasion of Norway; now there were." He describes how a month later Germany indeed did invade. First, it's laughable to think that the Germans put together an invasion plan in less than a month, and a cursory glance at the real history reveals otherwise. In October, 1939, Admiral Raeder had already broached the subject of a Norway invasion to Hitler, and by December, Hitler had activated the plan, known as Operation Weserubung, finalized in January and February of 1940.

A little later, Baker writes that "On the night of April 22, the British bombed occupied Oslo, something the Germans had not done". Maybe because the Germans had already bombed Nybergsund, Namsos, Bodø, Elverum, Åndalsnes, Molde, Kristiansund, and Steinkjer, and had also threatened to level Copenhagen unless Denmark capitulated, a tactic they repeated with Rotterdam.

As for Baker's contention that it was the British who bombed major cities first, Germany had already bombed Rotterdam, Warsaw, and Belgrade before the British bombed Mannheim. In fact, Baker's entire treatment of the Allied bombing campaign is puerile and shallow. Bombing for Churchill, he writes, was a "form of pedagogy". It was also Churchill's only offensive weapon at the time and a tempting choice after his country lost a million soldiers less than a generation before in World War 1.

That is not to justify it. The slide from "precision" bombing to area bombing in World War II is one of the most troubling moral questions arising from the conflict and a subject worthy of serious investigation (see Hastings, "Bomber Command" and Crane, "Bombs, Cities, Civilians"), but this book does not offer it. Instead, Baker's intent is to characterize Churchill as bloodthirsty, fretting in 1940 that if Hitler went East, in Baker's words, "England would have no war to fight" Please see an expanded consideration of this in my comment to James Luckard's "Gorgeously written" review above).

Churchill's true meaning was revealed a year later when he wrote Stalin that England would use air power to draw the Luftwaffe back off the Eastern front. German armies were less than 200 miles from Leningrad, and a German general would write: "Fuhrer is firmly determined to level Moscow and Leningrad to the ground, and to dispose fully of their populations, which otherwise we shall have to feed during the winter." At this point, Britain had still dropped half the bomb tonnage that Germany had on population centers. The balance would shift in 1942, prompting Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels to write, "Our cities have now to stand in 1943 what Britain had to stand in 1940."

Baker's treatment of the Pacific is no less misleading. He cites the US sending aviation fuel to Vladivostok while bypassing Japan, writing "The Japanese Navy ignored the provocation." Or this: "my conviction deepened that Japan would not fight unless she was compelled to by the cutting off of her oil supply." Or this: quoting Japan's Gandhi, Kagawa, "there wasn't nearly as much talk about war amongst the people of Japan as he had encountered in the US."

Readers might be shocked by these snippets, unless they knew that Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, China in 1937, Indochina in 1940, and would soon invade Malaya, Singapore, Borneo, the Dutch East Indies, and Korea, as part of its new Japanese Empire.

And readers never learn of Japan's starvation and torture of prisoners, its enslavement and wholesale slaughter of other Asians, nor of its active biological weapons program in Manchuria. Which renders absurd Baker's outrage over the US sending arms and advisers to China to help them fight back.

Considering Baker's attempt to make Churchill and FDR warmongers on a par with Hitler, his treatment of Nanking is also quite telling. He skims over it quickly (it's not even in the index), implying it happened only after the Chinese refused to accede to Japanese demands, writing passively, "rape and massacre followed."

No, the Japanese COMMITTED rape and massacre resulting in between 50,000 and 150,000 deaths. And they would repeat this barbarism across Asia, resulting in civilian deaths numbering in the tens of millions--orders of magnitude more deaths than Allied troops were responsible for. The League of Nations had condemned Japan's civilian bombings, along with that of the Germans in Spain, as "contrary to principles of law and humanity."

Baker sympathizes with the Jews' fate, and while not a Holocaust denier per se, his brand of revisionsm amounts to "Denial Lite." That is, Hitler may have massacred the Jews, but he never would have done it had not Churchill and FDR made him. Baker's endless talk of ships to Madagascar or trains to Siberia for relocating Jews as plausible alternatives to extermination if ONLY Churchill hadn't kept up his warmaking, is simply nauseating.

Jews deported from Berlin? Churchill's fault, because Aryans made homeless by Allied bombing needed housing--a fact which Baker repeats no less than four times in case we missed it. Final Solution? What else could Hitler do if the West wouldn't take the Jews off his hands? In Baker's mind, every move by Germany or Japan was not the result of calculated militarism, but of Allied refusal to accept the invaders' demands.

Baker posits the question in his afterword of whether the war helped anyone. Let's see: France capitulated to the Nazis and sent 90,000 innocent Jews to their deaths. Churchill's England fought back and sent none. Answer your question?

That the New York Times would feature this book positively on the front page of its Book Review is stark testament to the state of historical knowledge in this day and age. Baker's attempt to refashion history in so irresponsible a manner should be cause for alarm for any thinking person.

Just got it yesterday (pre-ordered) and will be finishing it tonight. Rarely does a book change my perspective so completely about a piece of history.

The parallels between now and then are clear; the machinations and outright lies of those who wage war are unsettling. The story unfolds through short paragraph-length vignettes and quotes from the major players on the path to WWII.

This is definitely a book with a moral, a message, a point of view. It doesn't seem to come right out and say 'war is bad' and 'peace is good', but the conclusion that you are led to is certainly no surprise. It also brings to light the prejudices and outright racist attitudes of many of our leaders from the covered timeframe.

For the record, I'm a veteran with 10 years in uniform. I am far from a pacifist, but after this book I feel that I understand the thoughts and views of pacifists as well as those who push for war and violence first. I still consider myself to be somewhere in between the two (pray for peace, but prepare for war), but this book definitely makes the point that since the early 1900's we have been and still are far too quick to choose what could be described as mass murder (perspective of course being tainted by which side you happen to be on) over the path of diplomacy and compromise.

Do you remember the original Chico Vasquelez skit on Saturday Night Live? At Mets training camp, Bill Murray profiles the comeback efforts of Chico (Garrett Morris) despite his aging body and the resentments felt by old teammates because of the tell-all book Chico wrote in the off-season: "Bad Stuff `Bout the Mets." The "bad stuff" ends up being things like, "Ed Kranepool: Always take up two parking spaces."

"Human Smoke" is sort of "Bad Stuff Bout the World War Two Allies." And as such it's sobering, riveting stuff, practically an anti-history of the war's build-up and early years. Baker is selective in his detail, often highlighting stories of brave pacifism or efforts to organize relief to Eastern Europe--efforts largely crushed by the demands of total war. It's a very different mosaic of events than we're used to reading about. As the author admits, it's far from comprehensive. Major events can be passed over fleetingly. And character is presented in only the lights Baker chooses. Churchill is essentially painted as a bellicose racist with an ongoing interest in developing poison gas weapons. No stirring speeches here.

The book projects such a peculiar vantage point that it manages to be fresh and compelling. I think most readers will begin to wonder why the author picked particular nuggets. Baker never comes right out with a thesis, but if he did it might be something like "If your way of fighting evil makes you do evil things in turn, then maybe it's wrong to have that fight." He presents some compelling pacifist arguments of the time, (as well as some less convincing islolationist points) . Ghandi looms large and sagacious.

Many readers are likely to have an instant knee-jerk reaction to the thought that pacifism could have somehow stopped Hitler. The thought may seem laughable. But it won't be by the time you finish "Human Smoke." Maybe--probably--you won't be persuaded. But you'll have thought about it longer and harder than you will have ever done.

And yes, racism is much worse than taking up two parking spots.

I was first made aware of this book by an article on CNN. I immediately ordered the book from Amazon and totally disregarded (in fact I didn't even read them) the reviews here. I knew that this book would polarize everyone, before they even read it. I hope to provide an honest review.

I expected the book to be a collection of newspaper clippings, from which I could draw my own conclusions. Upon receiving and reading the book, I must report that this is not the case. Most (in truth almost all) of the articles are summarized and include information discovered after the war. While this is helpful from a historical point of view, it also allows the author to insert his own view (either by happenstance, or purposefully) which he does a bit too much. Personally, I support the pacifist cause, but would have preferred more attention to an unbiased presentation of the facts.

I must also admit that I was completely unprepared for the revelations which the book inspires. As a graduate of the class of '01, my education of WWII was wholly inadequate. I was taught in public school that Churchill & Roosevelt were saints and Hittler was the devil incarnate. After reading the information in this book, and verifying the sources, I've had an eye opening experience. As it happens, all 3 of them are devils. Heres a FEW of the things this book will reveal to you...

The reason why Germany invaded Poland, and the offer to give it back.
How Churchill twisted public opinion to become Prime Minister, and his bloodlust for civilian casualties.
Germany's attempts to export its Jewish population, and provide them their own country.
The refusal of ALL major nations to accept Jewish refugees, as a result of their own anti-semitism.
The reason why Germany invaded Russia.
The circumstances which caused the formation of the "final solution" to the Jewish question.

This book contains an EXTENSIVE bibliography, which will keep you busy for hours on end "verifying". The simple fact of the matter is, you can't go back and rewrite history, the truth eventually resurfaces itself. "Human Smoke" does just that, it revives the dead voices and breathes an air of truth. I believe any history buff, or inquisitive person will value and cherish this book. If you desire substance which challenges your own historical foundations, then read this book.

While I love this book and its message, I really was disappointed with the bias issue. While the facts are true, I would have preferred less "commentary".

Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization is Nicholson Baker's history of the lead-up to World War II and the United States' involvement in it. Rather than provide a continuous, blow-by-blow account of things, Baker uses hundreds of brief news items, averaging perhaps half a page in length. These range from 1892 to the end of 1941 (the vast majority of the book deals with the thirties and forties). As Baker recounts a wide assortment of events, he has several questions in mind. As he states in the afterword (p. 473): "Was [World War II] a `good war'? Did waging it help anyone who needed help?" Ultimately, Baker challenges World War II as the exemplar of just war.

Baker's prose is engaging. He quotes whenever possible, and doesn't editorialize much. The brevity of his entries keeps the book moving at a fast pace. Baker draws heavily from newspapers, diaries, memoirs and public statements, and ties each news item to a specific date. This helps keep the material honest.

A lot of what Baker focuses on reveals another side of World War II, one many Americans aren't familiar with. Baker works to show that World War II did quite a lot more harm than it did good. Nevertheless, he at no time sympathizes with the Nazis - he accurately portrays how terrible they could be. Baker explores the warmongering side of Roosevelt and Churchill as well as Hitler. There is a side of the U.S. and Britain that he is keen to show, and some of the things these nations did might amount to shocking revelations for many people. World War II was brought about, to a great degree, by that great confluence of warmongers.

-The United States sold arms to Germany and Japan in the 1930s.

-Franklin D. Roosevelt, along with a great many other Americans and citizens of the world, was blatantly anti-Semitic.

-Before the Holocaust, Germany spent years trying to ship the Jews out. Nobody, including the United States, would take them. While this does not mitigate the horrors the Nazis perpetrated, it is alarming that by and large the rest of the world didn't care what happened to the Jews. Certainly this helped cultivate the environment for the Holocaust.

-The British blockaded continental Europe, and would not allow food shipments through, even food intended for starving citizens of occupied France. Herbert Hoover, the much-reviled, erstwhile president, fought tooth and nail for the food shipments.

-For years, Roosevelt taunted and provoked Japan, hoping to lure them into striking first, so that he could bring the United States into the war without reneging on his campaign promises to keep the country out of war.

-Bombing, a major war strategy for both sides, was notoriously imprecise. An unbelievably small percentage of bombs hit their intended targets. Additionally, both Germany and Britain deliberately, purposely and repeatedly bombed civilian targets.

Human Smoke is recommended to those with an interest in World War II, and to those who believe World War II was a just war, or that it was fought according to the criteria of just war by any nation.

"The facts ma"am, just the facts."
Sgt Joe Friday, Dragnet,

HUMAN SMOKE is just that, the facts that led to WW11. This includes many uncomfortable but absolutely true facts, such as the participation of the U.S. and Britain in an arms race and arms sales to Germany and Japan, the decision to engage in unrestricted bombing of civilians and cities by Churchill, with the enthusiastic support and assistance of Roosevelt, the sucessful plan by Roosevelt to force the Japanese to attack the U.S. fleet at Pear Harbor, with the enthusiastic support and assistance of Churchill, the complete and utter indifference of both Roosevelt and Churchill (both of whom were outspoken anti-semites) to the plight of Jews in occupied Europe, and of Poland, which our involvement in WW11 ended up assuring the destruction of.

For some reason, even people who should know better have largely accepted the notion that the Second World War, the greatest war in human history, and the first nuclear war, was some sort of "surprise" that began in 1939 when a lone, anti-semetic, madman decided to conquer the world begining with Poland, utilizing a strategy that he had published in a best selling book some years earlier.

Human Smoke will dispel that notion.

Begining with Thomas Flemming's, brilliant THE NEW DEALERS WAR, we seem to be finally witnessing the challenging of the official version of the historical events that formed the basis of the second world war.

And whether or not you come to the same conclusions, this book is a true page turner. I promise you, if you start this book,you will not be able to easily put it down.

Human Smoke is not for lovers of Churchill or of Roosevelt. The complete title is Human Smoke: The Beginning of the Second World War and The End of Civilization. The end he refers to is the bombing of civilians. The Germans did it. So did we. Vonnegut wrote about it in Slaughterhouse-5.
The non-fiction book is purposely flat. The author's outrage is apparent in the material selected. The Second World War stopped Hitler. That was good. Other things were not. The book puts me in mind of Norman Mailer's "The Executioner's Song," in which the author let everyone else speak. It's terrific.