How History Was Used in the Wars of the Twentieth Century

This readable narrative historiography explores how American and German historians wrote about the world wars within the chaotic context of their time, spanning the 1920s to the 1990s. Norrell touches on a few British and French historians but focuses on key works by American and German historians of WW I (Barnes, Beard, Dodd, Fay, Fischer, Meinecke, Oncken, Ritter, Schmitt) and their counterparts who covered WW II and totalitarianism (Arendt, Goldhagen, Hilberg, Kennan, Kissinger, Rothfels). Their histories invariably covered the origins of WW I, the Versailles Treaty, German war guilt, appeasement, Nazism, WW II, the Holocaust, and the Cold War. To explicate these histories, Norrell analyzes contemporaneous commentary, subsequent revisionist and post-revisionist perspectives, and published primary sources, including memoirs, autobiographies, and letters. The conclusion is sobering. Reading war histories may serve as engaging palliatives to place readers’ lives in historical context, but supposed historical lessons are often ignored or misapplied by the general public and by the power elite, who most influence public affairs. Reading about war fails to help maintain peace, making war perpetual, as evidenced by the 20th century being the bloodiest. This reliable, introductory monograph contains relevant endnotes and a useful bibliography for further exploration. Recommended. General readers and lower-division undergraduates. * Choice Reviews *