Human Smoke [Paperback]

Product Details

• Paperback: 800 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847393187
• ISBN-13: 978-1847393180
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.8 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (95 customer reviews)

More About the Author

I've written thirteen books, plus an art book that I published with my wife, Margaret Brentano. The most recent one is a comic sex novel called House of Holes, which came out in August 2011. Before that, in 2009, there was The Anthologist, about a poet trying to write an introduction to an anthology of rhyming verse, and before that was Human Smoke, a book of nonfiction about the beginning of World War II. My first novel, The Mezzanine, about a man riding an escalator at the end of his lunch hour, came out in 1988. I'm a pacifist. Occasionally I write for magazines. I grew up in Rochester, New York and went to Haverford College, where I majored in English. I live in Maine with my family.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

96 of 105 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A controversial look at mass slaughter..., March 17, 2008

By 

ewomack "ewomack" (MN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization (Hardcover)

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.

85 of 101 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars There is no revisionism on the planet that can turn Churchill into Hitler, no matter how eloquently the attempt is made., September 22, 2008

By 

Shawn M. Ritchie "History Dude" (Chicago, IL, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization (Hardcover)

"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.

151 of 189 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The cost of war, the fog of war, March 12, 2008

By 

Kerry Walters (Lewisburg, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization (Hardcover)

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.