1939: A People's History of the Coming of the Second World War
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3.7 • 7 Ratings
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A best-selling historian’s chronicle of the dramatic months from the Munich Agreement to Hitler’s invasion of Poland and the beginning of World War II.
In the autumn of 1938, Europe believed in the promise of peace. But only a year later, the fateful decisions of just a few men had again led Europe to a massive world war. Drawing on contemporary diaries, memoirs, and newspapers, as well as recorded interviews, 1939 is a narrative account of what the coming of the Second World War felt like to those who lived through it.
Frederick Taylor, author of renowned histories of the Berlin Wall and the bombing of Dresden, highlights the day-to-day experiences of ordinary citizens as well as those who were at the height of power in Germany and Britain. Their voices lend an intimate flavor to this often-surprising account of the period and reveal a marked disconnect between government and people, for few people in either country wanted war.
1939 is a vivid and richly peopled narrative of Europe’s slide into the horrors of war and a powerful warning for our own time.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British historian Taylor (Coventry) delivers an incisive survey of "the experience of the people living day by day, week by week, through the chaotic and unpredictable time immediately preceding the outbreak of the Second World War." Juxtaposing British and German perspectives, Taylor chronicles the year between the 1938 Munich Agreement and the 1939 invasion of Poland, drawing on personal diaries, published memoirs, newspaper accounts, and oral histories to examine how "the mass of the people" in both countries went from not wanting war to tolerating it with "grim determination." British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, Taylor shows, at first received "almost unanimous" praise from the press for his appeasement policy, but "hardly anyone" thought Hitler would stop with annexing the Sudeten territories of Czechoslovakia. Following Kristallnacht in November 1938, ordinary Britons saw the Nazi regime as "barbaric" and "guided by unhinged personalities," but remained largely ambivalent about Jewish refugees. In Germany, meanwhile, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels waged a yearlong disinformation campaign that convinced even some German Jews to support the invasion of Poland. Taylor's research impresses, though the granularity of detail may daunt all but the most dedicated of readers, and a through line about German serial killer Johann Eichhorn seems out of place. This exhaustive deep-dive offers fresh insights into how WWII happened.
