Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-1941

Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-1941

Ten decisions that changed the world indeed
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(REAL NAME) Rezension bezieht sich auf: Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-1941 (Taschenbuch) In "Fateful Choices", Ian Kershaw looks at ten decisions taken between the Spring of 1940 and December 1941, which have shaped the second World War and indeed the world since then. In doing so, the author looks at how the decision makers arrived at what they eventually decided upon and what other options they had in deciding on the subject matter.

What he doesn't do is to take the decisions for them, which would result in history turning out differently that it has, also known as fiction or fantasy. Besides, this would be a pretty useless exercise for a historian and Ian Kershaw says as much in his `Forethoughts'.

In detail, the ten decisions he looks at are:
Great Britain decides to fight on;
Hitler decides to attack the Soviet Union;
Japan decides to seize the `Golden Opportunity';
Mussolini decides to grab his share;
Roosevelt decides to lend a hand; (a rather snappy title I think this is)
Stalin decides he knows best;
Roosevelt decides to wage undeclared war;
Japan decides to go to war;
Hitler decides to declare war on the United States; and
Hitler decides to kill the Jews.

It is of course possible to add other fateful choices - as one of the other reviewers of this book did only to follow this up with his own piece of fiction/fantasy. Alternatively, you could make up your own top ten but I would wager that your list would not be very different from that of Ian Kershaw.

`Hitler decides to kill the Jews' I found an odd choice. Granted it was a rather fateful choice, but it had no impact on the outcome of WWII and the obvious alternative would have been not to do it, although I would agree that Hitler would not have been able to take this decision without pulling the ideological carpet from underneath himself.

The most intriguing chapter I found `Mussolini decides to grab his share'. His attack on Greece was supposed to show Hitler that Il Duce was just as good a military man as the German dictator. But by messing it up he forced Hitler to intervene and postpone his attack on the USSR by a month and that month delay may have cost him victory or so it would appear from reading the book. Hence, it would not be unreasonable to conclude that Il Duce's inferiority complex vis-à-vis Hitler has gone some way towards helping the Allies win the War in Europe. But I suggest you read the chapter yourself and decide whether you would agree or disagree with my notion.

Language-wise, this is an academic study and it reads like one. Kershaw packs a lot of information into his sentences, but with a reasonable understanding of the English language you should have no difficulties following the red line in this book.

All told I found this book excellent and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this period of history.

Eine Rezension von Ein Kunde
vom 11. Juli 2009


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