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Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World | 
 enlarge | Author: Patrick J. Buchanan
Publisher: Crown
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $17.47
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Avg. Customer Rating:  107 reviews
Sales Rank: 2772
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 544
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.8
ISBN: 030740515X
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.5311
EAN: 9780307405159
ASIN: 030740515X
Publication Date: May 27, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Were World Wars I and II—which can now be seen as a thirty-year paroxysm of slaughter and destruction—inevitable? Were they necessary wars? Were the bloodiest and most devastating conflicts ever suffered by mankind fated by forces beyond men’s control? Or were they products of calamitous failures of judgment? In this monumental and provocative history, Patrick Buchanan makes the case that, if not for the blunders of British statesmen—Winston Churchill first among them—the horrors of two world wars and the Holocaust might have been avoided and the British Empire might never have collapsed into ruins. Half a century of murderous oppression of scores of millions under the iron boot of Communist tyranny might never have happened, and Europe’s central role in world affairs might have been sustained for many generations.
Among the British and Churchillian blunders were:
• The secret decision of a tiny cabal in the inner Cabinet in 1906 to take Britain straight to war against Germany, should she invade France
• The vengeful Treaty of Versailles that muti- lated Germany, leaving her bitter, betrayed, and receptive to the appeal of Adolf Hitler
• Britain’s capitulation, at Churchill’s urging, to American pressure to sever the Anglo- Japanese alliance, insulting and isolating Japan, pushing her onto the path of militarism and conquest
• The 1935 sanctions that drove Italy straight into the Axis with Hitler
• The greatest blunder in British history: the unsolicited war guarantee to Poland of March 1939—that guaranteed the Second World War
• Churchill’s astonishing blindness to Stalin’s true ambitions.
Certain to create controversy and spirited argument, Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War” is a grand and bold insight into the historic failures of judgment that ended centuries of European rule and guaranteed a future no one who lived in that vanished world could ever have envisioned.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 102 more reviews...
 Pat Buchanan's Best Yet October 4, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
In this book Mr. Buchanan reviews the historical literature surrounding the origins of WWI and WWII. He catalogs the rise of Hitler and Churchill in their prospective countries. He proceeds to detail their interactions, with an emphasis on the unnecessary and impossible war guaranty that England gave Poland in 1939, which led to the German invasion of Poland, kicking off WWII. He then describes how this all caused the decline of the British Empire, the rise of the USSR in eastern Europe and how America is falling into the same trap in the 21st century. I have read the last 6 of his books and I feel it is his best yet. The narrative clear and cogent, with his assertions backed by numerous references. I highly recommend this book!
 absolutely deplorable October 4, 2008
6 out of 11 found this review helpful
"Churchill, Hitler and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World (Kindle Edition)"
What we have here is an anti-Bush book masquerading as an anti-Churchill book. Buchanan spends almost the entire book destroying Winston Churchill's reputation, yet concedes that he was a great war leader. He blames Churchill for losing the Empire, yet winning the war. But Neville Chamberlain lost the Empire because he was neither a war leader nor a statesmen of any value whatsoever.
What made Chamberlain so bad was his indecisiveness. First he tries to appease Hitler, then he reverses course and goes to war with him. This vacillation was fatal. Churchill was right about Munich. At that point, Hitler could be beaten. But Buchanan disputes this. Hitler's own generals would not have supported a three front war with the Czechs, French and British, and the Russians forming the three fronts. No way Hitler survives this. Chamberlain gave away the store in hopes of containing Hitler, but it fell apart. Humiliated, he tries to bluff Hitler and fails again. Chamberlain failed to stop Hitler and gives up on appeasement when that was all that was left to him. Total failure.
At least Churchill saved England itself. Without England, there could be no empire. Chamberlain failed on both accounts. Churchill rescues England, but by then it was too late to save the Empire.
What makes this book really bad is that Buchanan devotes the end of it to compare Bush with Churchill. Bush's steadfastness with Iraq becomes a liability, not an asset. Bush admires Churchill's steadfastness, and that is his great fault, according to Buchanan. Buchanan is just flat wrong on that one.
Magnificent, epochal work. October 3, 2008
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
For all the World War Two history buffs who have ever pondered such questions as 'Why the British Army was not annihilated at Dunkirk' or 'Why the Germans never built much of a Navy'... here is a book that provides extremely plausible explanations for these puzzles. Pat Buchanan's writing is lively, clear and smooth-flowing. He works from the most certain facts about the outcome of World War Two: That Great Britain lost her empire and became a small, second-rate island nation; that millions of innocent people died in the maelstrom; and that the Communists came to rule Central and Eastern Europe in a brutal fashion that impoverished these unfortunate nations for decades. From these incontestable facts Pat Buchanan sifts history to see if it was all so necessary or unavoidable. His conclusion is that it was not unavoidable; and that the biggest blunderers were British leaders and most specifically Winston Churchill. Buchanan postulates that perhaps it would have been better to allow Hitler to continue expanding into eastern Europe (allowing Poland to fall) where it would have eventually been inevitable that a German-Russian regional war would have ensued - but not the massive War that instead engulfed the world. His exposition is that Communism would have been destroyed by this war and the Cold War averted. Buchanan also provides substantial evidence that these eastward movements represent Germany's true aim: To become the singular power of Eastern and Central Europe - and that world domination was not Hitler's true goal. This book's claims may be considered audacious and controversial by some, but the author has done his homework in backing them up. Pat Buchanan has provided an epochal book on the subject - this is a magnificent piece of work that will most likely generate study and debate for a long time.
Compelling thesis October 3, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
I've read more than a few of Pat Buchanan's books. Some are interesting, many are what I call "a pamphlet stretched out to hundreds of pages". This one is a compelling read.
This is probably one of the best books Mr. Buchanan has written. His extensive research backs up a conclusion that Great Britain, and the US, may have been better off not having gone to war with Germany twice. Poor alliances and promises sucked them into these conflicts, essentially bankrupting England.
Through the lens of history we can see that Germany didn't threaten any vital interest of either the British Empire or the United states. His research is pretty convincing that in both wars Germany had no desire, at least when they started, of tangling with England. Nor did they have the resources to threaten much of England's Empire. Maybe it would have been prudent to keep the powder dry, so to speak, and tool up the military in case war was necessary. Even the dullest student of history can conclude that both the US and England were ill prepared to go to war. Twice.
The book leaves you with some compelling questions. What would have happened between Stalin and Hitler had Britain and the US not declared war? In retrospect, ponder the decades of having to deal with the USSR.
He ties things up in the end, applying lessons from both great wars to todays time. How many times do we commit the military when no US interest is at stake. Was Kosovo worth it? how about Somalia? Do we commit the military to Georgia because ethic Russians want to be part of Russia? The parallels to Poland pre WW2 are interesting. Were those alliances with France and Poland worth the cost of the British Empire?
This book ranks up there with some of the best historical analysis I've read.
Guaranteeing borders of other countries is a dangerous game September 29, 2008
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
Patrick Buchanan and I come from very different parts of the political spectrum. I was surprised to find his theories well thought out, well supported, and generally convincing.
My favorite quote from the book: ". . . [P]reventive war is 'like committing suicide out of fear of death.'"
Buchanan's main point is that although Britain was on the winning side in both WWI and WWII, these victories were Pyrrhic. Britain's empire and its dominant place in the world were destroyed. Britain could have avoided involvement in both these wars, and the world might well have turned out better. In both wars, Britain entangled itself in a conflict in which it had no direct interest. Particularly crucial was Britain's guarantee of the borders of Poland against Nazi aggression. This essentially turned over the decision of whether or not Britain should go to war to other nations, to Britain's ultimate detriment.
Buchanan does not spend a lot of time discussing the implications of all this. In my opinion, it is quite clear that the U.S. is in serious danger of going down a similar path of arrogance leading to ultimate destruction. We would be wise to seriously rethink our national policy of guaranteeing the borders of other countries. This is quite obvious in relation to the Vietnam war, but the U.S. is still making the same mistakes elsewhere. In the meantime, the United States itself is experiencing serious declines in its financial system and quality of life.
I would call Buchanan's "Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War" a don't-miss book.
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