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Fateful Choices
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Binding: Kindle Edition
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.5311
Format: Kindle Book
Label: Penguin
Manufacturer: Penguin
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 656
Publication Date: May 31, 2007
Publisher: Penguin
Release Date: May 31, 2007
Studio: Penguin
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Editorial Review:
In a mere nineteen months, from May 1940 to December 1941, the leaders of the world's six major powers made a series of related decisions that decided the course and outcome of World War II, cost the lives of millions, and profoundly shaped the course of human destiny from that point forward. How were these decisions made? What were the options facing these leaders as they saw them? What intelligence, right and wrong, did they have? What was the impact of personality, what that of larger forces? In a brilliant work with haunting contemporary relevance, Ian Kershaw tells the connected stories of these ten fateful decisions from the shifting perspectives of the protagonists, and in so doing rescues them from the sense of inevitability that now envelops them and restores to them a feeling of vivid drama and contingency-the feeling that things could have turned out very differently indeed. Each chapter follows the process of arriving at one decision, from the viewpoint of the leader who made it: Decision 1: May 1940. The British War Cabinet, driven by Churchill, agrees to fight on after the German blitzkrieg defeat of France, despite loud calls for negotiated settlement.Decision 2: Hitler decides to attack the Soviet Union.Decision 3: Japan decides to seize the "Golden Opportunity" and turn south, going after the colonial empires of the countries that have fallen to Hitler.Decision 4: Mussolini decides to join the war on Hitler's side to grab a share of the spoils.Decision 5: Roosevelt decides to lend a helping hand to England.Decision 6: Stalin decides he knows best and ignores all the clear signals that Germany is going to invade.Decision 7: Roosevelt decides to wage undeclared war.Decision 8: Japan decides to go to war against the United States.Decision 9: Hitler decides to declare war on the USA.Decision 10: Hitler decides to kill the Jews.Decision relates to subsequent decision, though never simply or necessarily as expected. The clash of personalities, the various weaknesses of the different political systems, the challenge of intelligence, the misdiagnosis of risk and possibility: all play their part. And after nineteen months, though much remained to be decided, the world's fate had been profoundly altered by these ten choices.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Great book and well written
I lived thru this area and like today information was subject to national bias so this was the rest of the story particularly the divided ideas in Japan.
Rating: - When the world hung in the balance
For those familiar with Kershaw primarily through his definitive two-volume biography of Adolf Hitler, 'Fateful Choices' might seem, at first glance, like a comparatively light-weight book with a 'what-if' gimmick at its core: what if England had sought a negotiated peace with Germany, what if Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor, etc. But Kershaw is not a light-weight historian, and he uses the book's structure as a series of teaching moments about key turning points in the course of the war. His ... Read More
Rating:  - Very interesting viewpoint on WW II history
I have read many WWII military history books, and this was a nice complement in that it provides some of the background that led to the action in WWII. Well-written and researched.
Rating: - The reasons why
This is a book which looks at ten decisions taken between 1940 and 1941 which affected the course of the Second World War. Rather than an alternative history it looks at each decision and the logic for it. It is worthwhile looking at one example to see the books method.
For instance Hitler's decision to invade the Soviet Union in retrospect seems outrageous folly. Look at what happened to Charles XII of Sweden and Napoleon. Both led armies into the depth of Russia and were defeated by ... Read More
Rating: - Fatefull Choices
One of the very best books I have read on these fateful years, in a true Kershaw tradition. Very well researched and highly recommended.
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