Good and evil in World War II / Michael Burleigh.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Burleigh, Michael, 1955-

Standardized Title:

Moral combat

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

World War, 1939-1945.

World War, 1939-1945--Moral and ethical aspects.

Physical Description:

xxi. 650 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Edition:

First U.S. edition.

Other Title:

Moral combat : good and evil in World War II

Place of Publication:

New York : Harper, [2011]

Summary:

British historian Burleigh (Blood Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism) delivers a long, riveting account of the awful atrocities of WWII and the perverted reasoning behind them. Burleigh explains that Communist, Nazi, Fascist, and Japanese systems claimed to be regimes of public virtue carrying out inexorable historical processes. Proclaiming that the only evil was obstructing this march to utopia, they discarded the rule of law and alternative moral authority (religion, ethics).

Contents:

The predators

Appeasement

Brotherly enemies

The rape of Poland

Trampling the remains

Not losing: Churchill's Britain

Under the swastika: Nazi occupied Europe

Barbarossa

Global war

The resistance

Moral calculus

Beneath the mask of command

Antagonistic allies

'We were savages': combat soldiers

Massacring the innocents

Journeys through night

Observing an avalanche

Tenuous altruism

'The King's thunderbolts are righteous': RAF Bomber Command

Is that Britain?

No, it's Brittany

The predators at bay.

Notes:

Originally published under title: Moral combat. London : HarperPress, 2010.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780060580971

0060580976

9780007195770

000719577X

OCLC:

703284351