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31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Foreign Policy *Must Read*, April 24, 2004
I stumbled across the original H/C version of this book at an antique dealer's shop. I was suprised by the title, I thought that Gore Vidal wrote the only book with that designation.Upon reading the dust jacket and introduction, I knew the book was for me, as the editor drops the name of Charles A. Beard into the mix. (Beard is one of the few recent historians that Gore Vidal praises.) The book is considered a 'revisionist' tome, and rightly so. The irony is that the original 'revisionists', (like Beard), sought to clarify the FACTUAL historical record. This book lays the case for foreknowledge of Japan's 'suprise' attack by the Roosevelt administration, and a series of maneuvers to incite Japan to land the first punch at Pearl Harbor. With the help of the FOIA, Robert Stinnet recently wrote 'Day of Deceit' which vindicates much of what these authors were writing back in 1953. Vidal wrote 'The Golden Age' as a fictionalized account of FDR's maneuvers, and I think he also used the FOIA, and came to nearly identical conclusions. You can disagree with the authors' product, but you cannot dispute the factual case laid out in detailed, indexed black & white truth. Cuts through propaganda like a hot knife through butter. Still relevant over 50 years after publication. That's impressive for a foreign policy book.
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38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Classic Indeed !, December 23, 2002
Classic revisionist study of how FDR maneuvered America, against the wishes of most of its citizens, into war against Germany and Japan, and how FDR's war policy ended in betrayal, disillusion and endless conflict. Establishes convincingly that U.S. participation in World War II was neither necessary, nor desirable, nor just. Edited by one of this century's most influential American scholars, this is a work in the front rank of American historical scholarship. Eleven concise, scintillating essays on every aspect of FDR's secret diplomatic and military warpath, by eight giants of revisionist scholarship, including H. E. Barnes, Charles C. Tansill, F. R. Sanborn, W. L. Neumann, G. Morgenstern, Percy L. Graves, Wm. H. Chamberlin, and G. A. Lundberg. A measured and relentless exposé of the calculated deceit by which FDR overturned America's traditional neutrality policy, provoked Pearl Harbor, and waged a brutal, pointless war that culminated in mass slaughter at Dresden and Hiroshima, and betrayal -- of America and the West -- at Yalta and Potsdam. These are incisive, unmistakably American perspectives on how the US made a mockery of its own professed ideals during the "Good War." A virtual encyclopedia -- authoritative and comprehensive -- on the real causes and the actual results of America's entry into the Second World War. Indispensable as a history and a reference. Highly relevant for an understanding of how the United States came to its present-day policy of "New World Order" global military adventurism.
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Exposure of Perpetual Stupidity, March 24, 2006
Harry Elmer Barnes was one of the most productive historians and social scientists of the 20th century. A bibliography of his books and monographs is about 50 pages and includes long tomes on various topics such as sociology, history, criminology, etc. His editing of PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE shows Barnes' ability as both a historian and an editor of other men whose contributions to this book are well written and poignant.
Barnes begins this book with an essay on the background of World War II by giving the reader a good summary of World War I and its aftermath. Barnes is clear that events before World War I were radically different than events during and after this war. He traces American policy from the end of World War I to World War II and beyond.
Barnes' use of Percy Greaves' background to the attack on Pearly Harbor is effective. Greaves was an expert on what actually happened when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Greaves' account is no sanitized textbook report but a carefully documented assessment that is basically unanswerable.
The same could be said of Morgenstern's work mentioned in PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE. Morgenstern's book PEARL HARBOR:THE STORY OF THE SECRET WAR is by far the best book written on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and when the "experts" could not refute him, they resorted to smearing him.
Charles Tansill's essay is well worth reading. In fact, Tansill's contritubtion to this book should be followed by a careful reading of his BACK DOOR TO WAR. Tansill had to resort to trickery to get the documents and sources for his BACK DOOR TO WAR.
The essays in PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE not only deal with the government's lying and manipulation to get Americans involved in a useless war, but the essays also indicate that the Americans got nothing out of the war. In fact, the only actual winners were the political leaders of Big Communism which expanded well into Eastern Europe and Asia. In fact, the phony "Cold War" was essentailly the attempt to settle the accounts from World War II.
Of particular interest is the essay on Orwellian trends. The government's use of war as a means to absorb unemployment by going to war and employing large numbers of people in war materials industries is instructive and should be read carefully. This essay makes clear that domestic problems and unemployment issues can resolved by long protracted wars with no clear winners or losers except for those who hold political power on both sides. This essay also shows how enemies and allies can change almost overnight.
PPERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL peace is a good start to learning a more comprehensive view on both the truth of the origins of World War II and the political and diplomatic trends thereafter. This book should be read by serious historians to correct the distortions in badly written textbooks and the phony presentations of politically correct teachers who are too timid to do any serious reading or thinking.
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