Not different in kind??

"Churchillism may not have been different in kind from Hitlerism." — ???

Okay, let's set aside (as does your article) the systematic extermination of two-thirds of Europe's Jews, which would have been three-thirds had Hitler not lost the war and for which there are no parallels in any "ism," even Stalinism, let alone "Churchillism," whatever that is.

What would be the equivalent kind of thing in "Churchillism" to this sort of thing which was not only routine but the essence of Nazism/Hitlerism/German behaviour during those years (and I quote from Robert Proctor's book, "Racial Hygiene":

In early October of 1939, designated by the government as the year of "the duty to be healthy," Hitler authored a secret memo certifying that "Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr Brandt are hereby commissioned to allow certain specified doctors to grant a mercy death [Gnadentod] to patients judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination." By August 24, 1941, when the first phase of this "adult operation" was brought to an end, over 70,000 patients from more than a hundred German hospitals had been killed, in an operation that provided the stage rehearsal for the subsequent destruction of Jews, homosexuals, communists, Gypsies, Slavs, and prisoners of war.

Children slated to dies were marked with a plus sign; children allowed to live were marked with a minus sign. Decisions were made entirely on the basis of these questionnaires; those doing the selection never examined the children in person or consulted the families or guardians. Children marked with a plus sign were ordered into on of the 28 institutions rapidly equipped with extermination facilities, including some of Germany's oldest and most highly respected hospitals … Parents were told that the transport was necessary to improve treatment for their child.
Methods of killing included injections of morphine, tablets, and gassing with cyanide or chemical warfare agents. Children at Idstein, Kantenhof, Gorden and Eichberg were not gassed but were killed by injection; poisons were commonly administered slowly, over several days or even weeks, so that the cause of death could be disguised as pneumonia, bronchitis or some other complication induced by the injections.

Start reading this book:

I loved this book. Yes, you know where the story is going before you even begin, yet fascinating reading creates an overwhelming narrative pull -- a history book you can't put down.

Some aspects of the review seem terribly condescending.

I'd like to think author Nicholson Baker is shooting for loftier aims than merely presenting history so his readers can feel superior to powerful statesmen of the past.
His book shines a light on many unquestioned and little reported episodes of the past that are a legitimate and edifying addition to the never-ending debate of history.
To try and paint it as an ego trip for readers is silly.

To describe pacifists (a terribly misunderstood term in our violence-fetish culture) as sweetly stupid is disrespectful and simplistic.

Human Smoke is just one lens through which to look at World War II -- but it is rich, subtle, fascinating and apparently quite threatening to the world view shaped by war's victors.

War is stupid and there is nothing sweet about that kind of stupidity.

It is the common view to see WWII as a battle to save lives and free people. This book gives a good tarnishing to that idea.

Great article.

I see a number of points to be made out of this report by Crawford Killian who is probably the most respected author on Tyee.

My primary concerns are found in the first four paragraphs, particularly this one:

"But our wisdom tempts us to despise Baker's characters -- Churchill, Roosevelt, and others -- for failing to be as wise as we are. This is the historian's sin of "presentism": judging the past by our own values. The brilliance of Baker's storytelling device only deepens the sin."

I've been saying precisely that about revisionist accounts re FN / White interactions at the time of early contacts, which are eagerly believed by some out of a sense of "presentism", motivated by the assumption of guilt.

A second point is that War and other forms of inter-human strife can bring out the worst forms of amoral behavior by All protagonists, ranging from the suicide bomber, the soldier on the battlefield and in occupation, the General blithely accepting "Collateral Casualties", Christians murdering other Christians in "defense of the faith", and the politician uncaring that that his / her policies might wreak havoc upon a foreign population or even his / her own.

By using our vaunted large brain any of us can rationalise ANY perspective we might choose, to suit ONLY our momentary objective, and logic be damned. This is our one overriding and truly human failing, the one the religionists warn us of, and then promptly fall into themselves.

We cannot learn from the past if we don't view it objectively. We cannot plan for the future if we don't fully understand where and why we previously screwed up, and this only because it is inconvenient to do so or because someone lied to us for the same reasons.

If we expect the "truth", we have to be prepared to seek it in ourselves even more than in others.

We cannot learn from the past if we do not view it objectively.

I'm relieved whenever another attempt is made to understand the enormity of World War Two ... and with its flaws, "Human Smoke" is a step toward a far better understanding than the uber-simplified "they died for our freedoms." The unravelling of current events should dispel that notion.

By contrast, there's a new book release, "Dieppe", which according to The Globe and Mail's review today, is about the British need to show Stalin that the Allied Armies were trying their best to support the Soviet armies. Hence the catastrophe when the sea turned red with the blood of Canadian soldiers on August 19, 1942.

Having spent 7 years studying the Dieppe Raid, I disagree that the British were trying to appease Stalin. Gen. George Marshall, the U.S. Joint Chief of Staff, had sent Eisenhower to London in 1942 to convince the British that the U.S. forces weren't going to mess about preparing to invade Europe and wipe out the Nazis ... no, they wanted an immediate invasion. Churchill couldn't convince them that the Allies were far from ready. So, in my view, the blood-bath known as the Dieppe Raid -- the first allied assault on Nazi-occupied Europe -- was undertaken to show the U.S.A. that it couldn't be done. And, to that extent, it was successful.

Dieppe was a heavily-fortified, deep sea port with sheer cliffs rising up from the beach. Of course it couldn't be seized. The shocking lesson quieted the U.S. for 2 more years until the massive preparations were completed for the 1944 invasion of Europe.

This new book, however, hauls out the old cliche: it's still so much more palatable to blame the Soviets than to blame the Americans. And that's not what good historians do.

So I say thanks to Nicholson Baker for using the historical method to its fullest advantage ... and thanks to Crawford Killian for completing the lesson by examining its flaws. That's so much better than making up fables which dishonour the ghastly events which, taken together, we call World War Two.

Values

I'm unclear. What new values have we gotten since World War II that we shouldn't be using to judge people of the past?

Undestanding what "presentism" means is the key, Erving.

I was born in '35, so I've seen many changes in values since the 50's, almost all of them having to do with human rights.

First off, in the 50s we still believed that intelligence was due to racially inherited genes. Racist attitudes were common to all peoples, and still linger. If we judge our Canadian forefather's treatment of FNs while recognising attitudes of the time, we have to see that they were light-years ahead of other "civilised" peoples in enlightened treatment of aboriginals. If we fail to do that, we cannot possibly analyse how the present problems have evolved.

The necessary sea-change to racist attitudes came with the Civil Rights movement of the 60s, and was then formally expressed in Canada by Trudeau's idea of the "Cultural Mosaic"

Attitudes towards women have also radically changed, even since the 50s. This seen in vastly improved access to divorce, contraception and to the courts, along with wages and salaries and sexual freedom - and they are far from being there yet.

Similarly, the 50s and 60s saw a tremendous surge in unionism, workplace standards, wage rates, safety regs, pensions and so on. So, do we now sneer at the employer who 150 years ago lowered hours of work to 12 hrs a day, six days a week for the same pay that formerly reqired 14 hrs a day, 7 days a week?

How many people are aware of the struggle that went into forming Socialist political parties - and of how many heads were bashed in in that process? We ignore at our peril the reality that we may have to do it again.

The Fascist capitalists are all too aware of the use of "presentism" when they propagandise that the standard of living we now have is the result of their altruism, rather than what many of us in our convenient apathy have forgotten, that we have had to fight damn hard to get every bit of what we now enjoy.

I'm of that generation who routinely believed the bullshit our corporations and governments told us, and it took the Sixties to fully open my eyes to how we have been propagandised. So it has come as a huge disappointment to see enviros and Lefties use the same techniques, arguing that since their objectives are good, "The end justifies the means". This heresy is no different than the one the neocons use when they claim that their sacred "bottom line" justifies all.

I don't think I'm being a purist in holding that when we use false argument, we foul our own nest. Just think about it, what's happened to the envionmental movement? How have allowed a flake like Tzeporah to become our spokesman? When we sell ourselves bullshit, and believe it, is it any wonder that the public, which has no turf to protect, stops believing us?

Presentism

Thanks for the further explanation, ME2.
I'm not sure I agree with it. I'm not sure I even believe so much in this march of progress sentiment that underlies your argument.
We do have more knowledge today and information about genetics can bolster the arguments against racism, but I don't think this knowledge played a significant role in the growing public unacceptability of racism.
Had Roosevelt or Churchill had this genetic knowledge, I don't think they would have acted differently. All debatable I suppose.
I'm curious to read how you compare presentism with cultural relativity?
One cannot judge others for their actions because they lived in a different time (with different values). One cannot judge others for their actions because they live in a different culture (with different values).
I suspect you don't grant the same generous judgments to say Iranian mullahs who condone stoning adulterers. Were they to be more merciful and merely put them in jail for life should we judge that as wrong of them still, or be approving that they are making progress?
Is the only difference that these other cultures presently have the gift of our "greater emancipation" which they stubbornly eschew that grants us the right to judge them more harshly than our forefathers?

Why do we fight?

In regards to the review and the book Human Smoke I think we're missing a key point. It is taken as gospel that World War II was a moral war because of the horrible crimes of the Other.
But I think when you study the history that view quickly falls away.
It is a common belief that America's Civil War was fought to free the slaves which is about as true as to say World War II was fought to stop a genocide, or the crimes of our economic competitors.
I think one of the powerful points of this book is to show that the war was not fought for the present OR past values. This story we tell ourselves, that our wars are for liberation, only holds up because it feeds our egos and helps us feel better about ourselves.
Our democratic free nations were violently, brutally, suppressing liberation movements around the world before, during and after WW II.
If we only have to be better than Nazis to reflexively congratulate ourselves perhaps we are setting the bar too low.
We are prone to idolizing our past leaders. Let us not be so afraid to criticize them like we do our present ones.
People condone the war in Afghanistan because of the horrendous treatment of women and their denial of education.
Whether it is a group of fanatics oppressing you or grinding, killer poverty I don't think it makes much difference to the victims.
There are hundreds of millions of girls on the planet who can't get enough to eat much less go to school.
But we spend billions of dollars dismembering people, making little progress, supposedly because we care about these Afghan girls.
Every time we bomb people we care passionately about some people's rights.
The Taliban are a product of a long devestating war that the West sponsored.
Afghans tolerated the Taliban because they were brutally repressive, but also in part because Afghans were sick of the endless war and insecurity. After eight years there that is what we have brought back to them.
We, the West, continue to grossly outspend the rest of the world on military budgets.
Is this really going to bring about more good than spending it on education and health care?
Yes, you can't build schools and hospitals without security. But come one, that is not the reason we're there! Canada, America and France have been "helping" Haiti for decades. There are no Taliban there. Look at the results. Find out how many children are going without what we might call basic rights: enough to eat, a basic education.

I ache at how quickly people can be rallied to support a war.