Come join us on the twentieth day of January in the new year and discuss the best
seller “Churchill, Hitler,and ‘the Unnecessary War’: How Britain Lost It’s Empire
and the West Lost the World” (db66888)and listen to an interview with the author,
Patrick J. Buchanan.
Only a Patrick J. Buchanan with his right-wing credentials could say that World War
One and Two “were unnecessary” challenging what most Americans believe, that World
War Two was the “good war” and World War One the “great War”. Patrick Buchanan, Presidential
speechwriter and White House advisor to three Presidents, as well as Presidential
candidate and TV pundit thinks differently. Buchanan provides a well-written and
well documented justification of his historical interpretation. Whether or not you
agree with his political philosophy or his Jeremiads about the decline of the Christian
West, which are confined mostly to the Preface, the book is well worth reading.
Buchanan states the question is “not whether the British were heroic…” “But were
their statesmen wise”. Thee following quotation provides the kernel of his argument.
“And it was Britain that turned both European wars into world wars. Had Britain not
declared war on Germany in 1914, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and
India would not have followed the Mother Country in. Nor would Britain's ally Japan.
Nor would Italy, which London lured in with secret bribes of territory from the Habsburg
and Ottoman empires. Nor would America have gone to war had Britain stayed out. Germany
would have been victorious, perhaps in months. There would have been no Lenin, no
Stalin, no Versailles, no Hitler, no Holocaust.
Had Britain not given a war guarantee to Poland in March 1939, then declared war
on September 3, bringing in South Africa, Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand,
and the United States, a German-Polish war might never have become a six-year world
war in which fifty million would perish.”
Why did Britain declare war on Germany, twice? As we shall see, neither the Kaiser
nor Hitler sought to destroy Britain or her empire. Both admired what Britain had
built. Both sought an alliance with England. The Kaiser was the eldest grandson of
Queen Victoria. Thus the crucial question: Were these two devastating wars Britain
declared on Germany wars of necessity, or wars of choice?” {From Churchill, Hitler,
and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost its Empire and the West Lost the World:
First edition,
Introduction pages xvi-xvii}
Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the
West Lost the World
Buchanan, Patrick J. Read by Ted Stoddard. Reading time 15 hours 58 minutes.
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.66888
NLS RC66888, Bookshare.org
AUDIBLE unabridged