Moral Combat : Good and Evil in World War II

by BURLEIGH MICHAEL

• ISBN13: 9780060580988
• ISBN10: 0060580984
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1900-01-01
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

In this sweepingly ambitious history, Michael Burleigh explores the moral sentiments of the societies and leaders of World War II, brilliantly revealing how their attitudes motivated the conflict?and how they were ultimately transformed by the shock of total war. Burleigh's painstaking scholarship and profound sensibility reveal how the choices made by governments, communities, and individuals to enthusiastically embrace evil, to consciously reject it, or to determinedly overlook the war's moral quandaries were critical factors in a conflict that grew to consume the globe. Spanning both major theaters and a wide spectrum of issues, from the Axis "predators" to the Allied appeasement, from the rape of Poland to the complexities of reparation, Moral Combatilluminates how the war was driven by?and decided by?this deadly conflict of philosophies. Original, perceptive, and astonishing in scholarship and scope, this is an unforgettable and hugely important work of Second World War history.

Author Biography

Michael Burleigh is the author of Sacred Causes, Blood and Rage, and The Third Reich: A New History, for which he was awarded the Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction. He lives in London.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgement	p. vii
Maps	p. xiii
The Predators	p. 1
Appeasement	p. 35
Brotherly Enemies	p. 76
The Rape of Poland	p. 115
Trampling the Remains	p. 134
Not Losing: Churchill's Britain	p. 158
Under the Swastika: Nazi Occupied Europe	p. 190
Barbarossa	p. 221
Global War	p. 253
The Resistance	p. 268
Moral Calculus	p. 287
Beneath the Mask of Command	p. 311
Antagonistic Allies	p. 334
'We were Savages': Combat Soldiers	p. 360
Massacring the Innocents	p. 394
Journeys through Night	p. 419
Observing an Avalanche	p. 443
Tenuous Altruism	p. 463
'The King's Thunderbolts are Righteous': RAP Bomber Command	p. 478
Is That Britain?-No, It's Brittany	p. 506
The Predators at Bay	p. 533
List of Illustrations	p. 563
Notes	p. 567
Select Bibliography	p. 603
Index	p. 623
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