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John Lukacs

The Legacy of the Second World War Hardcover – March 9, 2010

by John Lukacs (Author)

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Sixty-five years after the conclusion of World War II, its consequences are still with us. In this probing book, the acclaimed historian John Lukacs raises perplexing questions about World War II that have yet to be explored. In a work that brilliantly argues for World War II’s central place in the history of the twentieth century, Lukacs applies his singular expertise toward addressing the war’s most persistent enigmas.

The Second World War was Hitler’s war. Yet questions about Hitler’s thoughts and his decisions still remain. How did the divisions of Europe—and, consequently, the Cold War—come about? What were the true reasons for Werner Heisenberg’s mission to Niels Bohr in Copenhagen in September 1941? What led to “Rainbow Five,” the American decision to make the war against Germany an American priority even in the event of a two-ocean world war? Was the Cold War unavoidable? In this work, which offers both an accessible primer for students and challenging new theses for scholars, Lukacs addresses these and other riddles, revealing the ways in which the war and its legacy still touch our lives today.

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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

For readers devoted to WW II histories, esteemed historian Lukacs (Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat, 2008) presents several interpretive essays about the origin, course, and ramifications of the conflict. WWII was inconceivable without instigation by Hitler; nevertheless, there are still open questions about Hitler that Lukacs pursues, such as the scale of the war he wanted (not a global conflagration runs the author’s argument). Lukacs also differentiates between the fanatic and the statesman, granting a kind of rationale to the dictator’s insistence on continuing the war until the bitter end, hoping for a split between the Allies—which did occur but too late for the Nazis. In addition to the cold war, another inheritance of WWII, the atomic bomb elicits Lukacs’ thoughts about the historically controversial 1941 meeting between Germany’s nuclear research chief, Werner Heisenberg, and his mentor, Niels Bohr. Including a chapter about American prewar strategic plans, Lukacs reminds readers that when it comes to WWII history, sections remain to be written, and what has been written departs from historical truth in certain ways. --Gilbert Taylor

Review

"Mr. Lukacs is one of the more incisive historians of the 20th century, and especially of the tangled events leading to World War II."—Joseph C. Goulden, Washington Times

(Joseph C. Goulden Washington Times)

“John Lukacs presents an original and complex analysis. The scholarship is thorough and impeccable, and the final product a highly nuanced discussion of major decisions and problems.”—Stanley Payne, author of Franco and Hitler: Spain, Germany, and World War II

(Stanley Payne)

“Esteemed historian Lukacs . . . reminds readers that when it comes to WWII history, sections remain to be written, and what has been written departs from historical truth in certain ways.”—Booklist

(Booklist 2010-03-01)

ASIN : 0300114397
Publisher : Yale University Press (March 9, 2010)
Language : English
Hardcover : 208 pages
ISBN-10 : 9780300114393
ISBN-13 : 978-0300114393
Item Weight : 13.4 ounces
Dimensions : 5.75 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,894,133 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #27,292 in World War II History (Books)
- #62,446 in European History (Books)
- #103,419 in World History (Books)

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19 ratings

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David

Editing is Important

Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2015

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This book tackles some of the deeper issues that arise when one thinks about what it (WWII) all meant--why WWII turned out as it did. And the author does an excellent job explaining his thoughts throughout. The only reason I couldn't give it 5 stars is because of the book's poor editing. If I remember correctly, this book was published by the Yale Press. If Yale University, however, can't review the books it produces so as to ensure the lack of typos, and if it is unable to clean up its authors' awkward sentences, then, perhaps, Yale University needs to stop publishing books.

One person found this helpful

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Chuck Sankey

one gets a pretty clear picture of they "why" of today

Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2016

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I have been reading everything I can about WWI, the intervening years to WWII and beyond.
The past truly is prologue and we are paying the price right now of others' colonialism,
appeasement politics (then and now), and a host of other consequences of history. Between
this, Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations and The Fall of Society, one gets a pretty
clear picture of they "why" of today.

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Gonzo

Lukacs Insight.

Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2020

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John Lukacs always brings a well researched insight to his subjects. Written from the perspective of a historians lecture, it illuminates big power relations and long historical currents that shaped our world after WWII. His views are unique and acute.

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Kelly A. Mcginnis

Disconnected Ramblings

Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2011

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The Legacy of the Second World War is a poorly written ramble, which attempts and fails to answer questions that only an academic would be interested in debating. Unsupported statements are piled one on another, with obvious bias and little insight. Lukacs cannot complete a paragraph without interrupting his point with innumerable side comments and parenthetical tangents. The reader feels they have begun a conversation with an aged professor from which they cannot escape, so patiently they suffer on, hoping for deeper insight. It never arrives.

John Lukacs has led an extraordinary life and deserves recognition for his accomplishments, but this book cannot be recommended for insights delivered or readability.

5 people found this helpful

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Raimonds

WW II Behind closed doors

Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2010

Being unfamiliar with other works of the author, but having read the title of the book, I fancied topics like the Cold War, divided Europe, the end of colonialism and establishment of the United Nations. To some degree they are discussed in this narrative, however, only implicitly. The major part of John Lukacs's analysis is devoted to the endeavors and changing beliefs of Hitler, Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill throughout the war. The format of the book, of course, compels the author to be somewhat selective in choosing the turning points of the war, which changed those beliefs, later having the most obvious impact in the post-war period. On the top of that, causal relationship between the strategies pursued, whether real or imaginary, and the outcome, inevitably pushes the book towards examination of "what if" scenarios. Those, of course, are also a very interesting reading material for everyone, deepening his knowledge about the history of the Second World War.

A significant part of the whole narrative is allocated to the relationship and convictions of Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill. The pundits in the history of WW II, perhaps, might not find new facets in this analysis. However, the author makes the point, that by and large, the relationship between the leaders was a decisive factor for the Allies to keep their promises to each other until, and some time after Hitler's defeat. Even notwithstanding different interpretations of their common decisions, as in case of the fate of the post-war Poland. The author emphasizes Stalin's genuine respect for Roosevelt (p.166) and the fact that as the war went on, Roosevelt thought that his relationship with Stalin was more important than with Churchill (p.39). The reasons for Hitler's plan to fight to the end, starting as early as in 1941, and thereby precipitate the inevitable break-up of the alliance of his enemies are given in a separate chapter. The Second World War was Hitler's war. However, as it turns out from that chapter, even at the end of the thirties, he was convinced that he would not live long and, therefore, that time was working against him and against Germany.

The book is exciting, because the author does not spare the words to make daring and sometimes even bold statements. For instance, he states "while the Americanization of Europe was spontaneous, a Russifiaction of Eastern Europe did not happen" (p.41). I think, the elderly generation in the Eastern and Central Europe could not agree less. It is sufficient to notice a lingua franca in communication between elderly in the region, particularly, since now they are able travel and communicate between each other. In the same vein, Lukacs states that Finland during the Cold War had pro-Russian government (p.187). I am not a Finn, but with my mind's eye I see very different reactions to such a statement, if made in auditorium.

Slightly annoying are the author's quite frequent remarks, that in his narrative, suddenly, he is off the subject. Interesting flows of the thought pretty often finishes abruptly, stating "But that is another story". Also, an attentive reader at the end might even get slightly confused, since Lukacs himself recognizes that "This book is about the Second World War" (p.162). One could also spot an inaccuracy with regard to the year of Stalin's death - 1952 (p.181).

Anyhow, notwithstanding these minor shortcomings, the book is captivating. Tracing back a decision-making process, thoughts and considerations of the most powerful minds of the Second World War, can only be within grasp of a talented and knowledgeable historian. John Lukacs is definitely one of them. A careful reader will have made a broad step in his apprehension in what would be the legacy of the Second World War, if one or two of the protagonists of that epoch, were either deceased or lost their powers a year or two earlier or later.

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justjack

One Giant Shrug Emoji

Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2018

I have read a number of other Lukacs books related to WWII and came away both educated and entertained. "The Legacy Of The Second World War," however, is a different kettle of fish.

Lukacs claims to address six questions: Was the Second World War inevitable? Was the division of Europe inevitable? Was Hitler inevitable? Was the making of atomic bombs inevitable? Was America's war against Germany inevitable? and Was the Cold War inevitable? What he does in each instance is identify competing standard theories, and then suggest that the truth falls somewhere in between. In other words, his conclusion to the six questions--that is, on those rare occasions when his conclusions are clearly identified as such--consists of giving a big shrug and saying, "Yes and No." To quote the old Monkees hit, it's a little bit me, it's a little bit you.

And then there's the writing, which is byzantine and unnecessarily complex. Backward ran the sentences! Furthermore, time and again Lukacs uses double-word phrases like "beyond and beneath," "stunned and shocked," "believed and feared," "attacked and killed," "gather and collect." This book needed tightening up by a firm-handed editor.

The only time Lukacs's writing becomes lucid is in the chapter where he nails down the timeline of Heisenberg's and Bohr's wartime interactions. That's the one time where his brilliant historian skills shine through.

To reiterate: I have greatly enjoyed other books by John Lukacs. I did not enjoy "The Legacy Of The Second World War."

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Mr. C. J. Humble

The Mountain Ranges of Modern History

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 9, 2011

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From a vantage point of seventy years it is becoming possible to view the Second World War and its aftermath in the historical context of the twentieth century and propose some themes, in terms of the Anglo- German struggle for European domination and also of the ensuing cold war. John Lukacs is a Hungarian American scholar who has written widely about the war and the political divisions of the modern world. His style is reflective and interpretive rather than narrative, and will be familiar to readers of "The End of the Twentieth Century and the End of the Modern Age" and "At the End of an Age."

Lukacs's initial thesis is that the two world wars were the defining events of the twentieth century, not the Russian Revolution and the Cold War. "The two great wars were the two great mountain ranges that dominated the entire history of the twentieth century" (page 8). Of the two, the Second World War was the more significant, both in itself as a "total war" involving greater areas of the world and entire civilian populations, but also in terms of its impact on the world and international relations. It directly led to the dissolution of the European empires as well as the Cold War. The latter resulted from the division of Europe and the domination of Eastern Europe by Stalin (pages 54 and 161).

Lukacs's second thesis is that the Second World War was Hitler's war; he was the principal cause of it. As in his other books about the Second World War, Lukacs counterpoints the centrality of Hitler with that of Churchill. They represented two contrasting world views and world orders, and their struggle reflected that between an older, hierarchical yet essentially law bound order, and one that was revolutionary, ideologically driven and totalitarian. Hitler was winning the war up until December 1941 when the Red Army halted the Wermacht outside Moscow. "... in May and June 1940 Hitler came very near to winning a total victory in this war, his war. One man, Churchill, stood in his way. Hitler and Goebbels knew that. Churchill knew that too" (page 30). Yet that was also the moment when Hitler refrained from pushing forward to overrun the retreating British Army at Dunkirk, thus allowing over 300,000 troops to escape, who formed the nucleus of what eventually became the force that reengaged Hitler in the west. Why Hitler did that remains an unexpalined puzzle.

Lukacs's third thesis is that the Cold War developed from Hitler's attempts to foster divisions between the Allies once he knew in December 1941 that he could not win the war but that Germany was not thereby fated to lose it totally. Was that really so? Lukacs provides documentary evidence that this was Hitler's strategy for the rest of the war. Neverheless, I am not persuaded that these rivalries would not have occured in any case. Three factors may be cited in support of this: Stalin's desire to create a cordon sanitaire in Eastern Europe that would protect the Soviet Union from future assault as well as from the contagion of western political ideology; Roosevelt's deluded belief that he could win Stalin's trust and cooperation; and Roosevelt's tactics of undermining Churchill and preventing any possibility of a reemergence of the British Empire after the war.

Lukacs sees the Second World War as preeminently a European war. This fits his thesis that Hitler was central to its causes and that the division of Europe was the cause of the Cold War. I do not dispute either of those two points, but I nevertheless disagree with a modification of the significance of the war as a world war and the importance of the war in the Far East. Lukacs asserts that the war began with the invasion of Poland in August 1939 rather than having its origins in 1931 or 1934 with the incursions of the Japanese Imperial Army into Manchuria and other areas of China (page 17). Lukacs later qualifies that claim on pages 34- 35 when he acknowledges that this was the Chinese experience and perspective. He might also have better reflected the writings of miltiary historians such as Max Hastings who, in "Nemesis", his account of the war against Japan, made what I thought was a sound case in support of that view.

It has been useful to read "The Legacy of the Second World War" alongside another book about the division of Europe, "The 'Sick Heart' of Modern Europe: the Problem of the Danubian Lands" (1975) by Hugh Seton- Watson. That book, written at a time when the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe appeared entrenched, and the "period of stagnation" under Brezhnev was particulary brutal, offered a prescient commentary about East- West relations and the axis around which they pivoted in Central Europe, a commentary that illuminates the insights offered by Lukacs. Seton- Watson's basic thesis was that "Europe remains the heart of the human race, and the heart of Europe is sick" (page 76) and, on page 3: "The phrase was that Germany was the heart of Europe, and that all the troubles of the last few generations in Europe had derived from the fact that the heart was sick." Seton- Watson perceived that Soviet domination of Eastern Europe could not be sustained indefinitely, given the tensions it had stoked: "Today about eighty million Europeans are subjected to national humiliation, and this makes Europe one of the most explosive parts of the world" (page 74).

The Second World War led to the Cold War, whose end in 1989- 1991 marked what Lukacs calls the "end of the twentieth century." But history has continued, and the unfolding of events since 1991, such as the civil war in Yugoslavia and the impact of 9/11, still continue. Lukacs is a wise and perceptive historian who has provided an illuminating guide to the ramifications of the central historical event of the modern era.

6 people found this helpful

David Ashton

An interesting book, written by a somewhat maverick but ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 8, 2016

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An interesting book, written by a somewhat maverick but erudite historian with a distinctive prose style, that puts a question mark against his previous adulation of Churchill's drive against Germany in alliance with Soviet Communism.

polyglot

Truth isn't meant to do harm

Reviewed in France on June 12, 2013

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On the back cover of John Lukacs’ book “The Legacy of the 2nd WW” are quoted some lines from the Washington Times comment, such as “raises perplexing questions about WWII that have yet to be explored”. That was a langue de bois presentation formula, trying to clutch virtual readers’ attention without risking to offence the known version of recent history. But John Lukacs’ book isn’t offending. It just gives author’s explanation on what must have been known but not made public. The author lived the times he wrote about, so he may have a more comprehensive retrospective on the subject. I invite you to read (t)his book. It was his first that I read and I’ll look for other ones, such as The Great Powers and Eastern Europe; Budapest 1900: a Historical Portrait; The Duel: the 80 Day Struggle between Churchill and Hitler; 1945: Year Zero etc. If you like analytically (not gloriously) written history, do read John Lukacs’ book(s)! So I will.

M. Livre

Tres intéressant

Reviewed in France on May 31, 2013

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Vient compléter tout ce que l'on sait déjà par des apports peu connus sur les suites de la deuxième Guerre Mondiale

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