As I mentioned back in late November, I wasn't at all gripped in my reading of John Keegan's The Second World War, and at that time was seriously considering abandoning the volume. However, it turned out that I was able to make myself keep going, managing to finish the book today. I suppose I felt a bit of a duty to do so given the depth of the work in terms of sheer detail, especially on the statistical front. It would have felt like an affront to all that research to just abandon the tome.
Did I really learn anything from my reading? That's always a tricky one to answer in relation to anything concerning historical events, but I'd say I have a firmer grasp of three aspects of the conflict: 1) Any war is wasteful in any number of ways, but WW2 was extraordinarily so, and being extraordinarily complicated didn't help. 2) Strategic bombing of cities is obviously a war crime, but it was always going to happen and somehow we all manage to accept it. 3) After Okinawa the use of nuclear weapons was inevitable and no matter how much we might want to condemn their use it would be naive to pretend that we can comfortably do so.
Oh, and just to state the obvious: War is hell, and this one went to the deepest circles thereof.
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