David Reynolds (2)Rezensionen

An interesting view of Churchill's writing and aspects of his life from a literary perspective of a critic.

Three volumes in one meticulous groundbreaking book which chart three facets of the American rise and parallel growth as an 'Empire of Liberty.' This book is not the sophisticated word clutter which histories usually tend to be. This is intended for the lay reader expressing an interest in the United States and its past. More prescient is the fact that Reynolds actually provides a comprehensive argument for why America became an Empire of Liberty rather than narrate tales now long rendered in the annals of history. A must read book for any historian studying the rise of the United States.

Not really what I was expecting, but all in all a very thought provoking read. I was expecting more an argument as to why the 20th century turned out as it did and why much of that was the result of World War I. There was elements of that in here, but it was more about how societies perceptions of the Great War changed over time, to tie it to current societal trends. Cogent and well written, I would certainly recommend.

Penetrative, comphrehensive snslysis and review of the process, decision makiing and response to Churchill's epic epistolary tour de force, "The History of World War Two". The author carefully and skillfully disects the methodolgy for creating this highly regarded series while providing an excellent historical perspective pf Churchils's very skilled crasfting of his version of history. As a conducter leads an orcestra, Churcill guided his "syndicate" to a work skillfully tuned to the subtleties and nuances of the the political world when the events occurred as well as that during the series genesis. Shifts of pespective and emphasis were tools used to support Churchill's vision of himself as the "man of the Century"½

The concept is simple: Although overshadowed by the Second World War, WWI (or The Great War) was a vast conflagration that inspired far-reaching reactions that percolated through subsequent decades. The war led directly to such manifestations as nationalism, pacifism, the desire for revenge, new nations being born, and an attempt at controlling the evil of mass war, The League of Nations. The author examines The Great War's impact on Britain and her WWI allies and adversaries, including the U.S. He notes the far-sighted, but flawed, internationalism represented by Woodrow Wilson. He also points out that Britain enjoyed the post-war decades far more than most countries because of a host of unique factors. The concept for this book is certainly valid, but in its execution, I believe Reynolds goes overboard--for example, in examining WWIs impact on novels, art, and poetry of the day. The book at this point becomes lit crit, not history, and by this point he has made clear his central thesis and is gilding the lily. He splits the work into two parts, and the first (about actual effects of WWI on Europe in the post-war years), is the stronger and more interesting of the two.½

For those who like to take a very long view of history, examining how a single event can have a wide variety of repercussions lasting centuries, The Long Shadow is an excellent choice. David Reynolds uses the First World War (the Great War) as a starting point and illustrates how the events of that conflict were interpreted and re-interpreted in the light of later events, and how they influenced the views of those later events. Each chapter covers a major theme (e.g. Democracy, Civilization, Evil) and talks about how the First World War's legacy is expressed in various countries in relation to that theme. One chapter talks about the cultural legacy of the Great War, specifically how it was memorialized in various countries (with the UK doing the most in terms of war art and poetry), while another talks about the widely differing experiences each of the participating countries had during what later became known as the interwar years -- why some turned to fascism while others remained more centrist.

This book has abundant citations and endnotes that could provide even more reading enjoyment for avid history buffs. It's a fascinating book and I recommend it if you like broad sweeps of history.½

A very thorough analysis of the impact of WW I both for the immediate aftermath and for the long range "legacy." George F. Kennan once described WW I as " The seminal event of the 20th century." It was not only responsible for reconfiguring Europe in the aftermath of the collapse of the Old Order and dynasties but created new paradigms for conducting diplomacy; the Wilsonian vision. Unfortunately, in redesigning the political map it laid the seed for enduring resentments that would provide fuel for the likes of Mussolini, Hitler, and many aggrieved minorities. Among them would be Arab and Asian nationalists. Reynolds treats each section of the globe both within its unique context and in the wider diplomatic scheme. He writes well, and as one reviewer indicates does seem to muddle in a few spots but they are the exception. Complete with maps that show the evolution of events, it is highly recommended for the specialist who enjoys competent historiography and for the generalist who desires a better comprehension of the grand sweep of history.

a study of how ww 1 affected the nations that fought it. it explores how those nations thought about the war after the war. the war for most nations took the cork out of the bottle so to speak, especially in eastern europe. it certainly was not the war to end war, it actually encouraged new wars. wilson with all his ideas let use demons that had been hidden for generations. its interesting to note that perhaps the only nations that the war empowered was GB and the US. of course the US got into the war at the end and suffer in war deaths the least. most of the american deaths were caused by the flu of 1919 not combat. this is a mix of pop history and more in depth study readable but it is long, over 400 pages.

Below are some fine, in depth reviews of this book. By reading those you will get a sound idea of the worth of this book (I gave it 5 stars). Instead, what I will do is provide a bit of personal insight.....This is definitely a book worth reading. However, you will encounter sections that are rather dry and may not be of great interest to you. I found a couple of those. My advice is to plow through those sections, keep going. The remainder of the book you should find very stimulating. It would be shame to give up on the rest of the book because a section or two is not of interest.

5190. The Long Shadow The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century, by David Reynolds (read 24 Aug 2014) This masterful book, published in the U.S. in 2014, sets out with a competent hand the way the Great War has been viewed in the years since 1914 up to this centennial year. I found myself appreciating it more and more as it progressed chronologically to relate how the war has been viewed and how it has effected the nations and their view of it. He discusses so many of the books I have read and absorbedly studied. I could not find any serious flaw in his views of how the War has affected the course of history. The book is a good overview of the events of the years since 1914 I admired the sure command of the subject which the author, a Cambridge University professor, displays.

"In command of history" is the type of magisterial work that Churchill would have been proud to have his name on. It is clear that Reynolds has completed an enormous amount of research to write this book and one would be hard pressed to find someone with greater knowledge of Churchill and his life.

This knowledge and the resulting indepth recording of it in print is ultimately the reason why this doesn't receive five stars. There were perhaps too many cases where he includes small, irrelevent details as if to show how much research he has undertaken, but instead gets the reader bogged down in details.

Also evident is the post-event rewriting of history that Churchill and others (including Mountbatten's reworking of his disastrous Dieppe Raid) participate in. Having said that, I did like Churchill's handling of the Fall of Singapore and his ambiguious acceptance of the blame for it.

Well worth a read, whether you're a WWII buff or just someone who wants to understand the major event of the last century and one of its key players.½

Excellent piece of writing. I wouldn't have thought you could effectively cover the scope of American history from the Pilgrims to Obama in a single volume, but Reynolds does it with skill, style and elan. Perhaps a few areas get short shrift, the Indian Wars for example, some areas get particular attention, Roosevelt and the New Deal for example, but generally he gives an excellent and interesting coverage of all the major events, plus many more obscure happenings, all the while moving with skill & pace to keep the reader's interest. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to extend their knowledge of American history without sacrificing reading enjoyment.½

The Long Shadow is a thought-provoking book about how the First World War affected the rest of the 20th century. The first half of the book is devoted to how the war changed various aspects of society in the decade immediately after the war. The second half focuses on the rest of the century and covers how the memory of the war was first eclipsed by the clear morals of World War II only to be rediscovered by the next generation of the 1960s and 70s.

I learned a lot from this book about how the war affected different nations differently. The cult of the war poet, for example, is a distinctly British phenomenon. Many nations base their national story around events that occurred during World War I, and the growth of this consciousness forms a key part of the book. Highly recommended for anyone who likes good non-fiction, with an interest in World War I, or with 20th century history.

Mine was the UK edition. It will be published in May 2014 in the US as The Long Shadow: The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century.

The Long Shadow is an extremely ambitious book that, as its subtitle avers, attempts to trace the influence of the First World War to the present day. It is divided into two halves: (1) legacies (direct outcomes of the war) and (2) refractions (changes in the ways in which the war was perceived). It is difficult to summarize because its scope is so vast. In fact, it is so loaded with facts and background and insights and references that one can lose sight of the major thesis of the book, which is a shame, because it is an important one.

Reynolds employs a number of broad themes (nationalism, imperialism, capitalism, etc.) not only to document the wide range of effects of the war. He also illustrates the ways in which the history of WWI was interpreted, first of all to serve the social and political agendas of the combatants at the time, and second, to readjust the understanding of the conflict in light of WWII. It is not revolutionary of course to claim that history is contingent, or that it is used by those in power for their own ends. But such an analysis is uncommon to most accounts of WWI, which focus on specific treaties, leaders, social movements, and battles. Similarly, such an evidentiary approach is generally taken to explain the factors contributing to the short hiatus between WWI and WWII.

Reynolds, on the other hand, wants to show us exactly how the historical reconstruction of WWI - i.e., the deliberate formation of the collective memory of the war - was used by each country to reshape what happened into a narrative that could justify not only what came before the war, but what came next. [For example, given the casualties of just one battle, that of the Somme (estimated to be some 600,000 on each side), such sacrifices had to be vindicated in light of the fact that another world war came just twenty-five years later.] Reynolds is making a broader point than “the victors write the history.” At its simplest, that precept can mean only that reports on the outcome of battles tends to be self-serving.

Reynolds uses his multifaceted approach to take us away from the material aspects of the conflict, to see how the perceptual and ideological lenses informing its history led to quite different (and selective) memories of that time. The meanings thus generated have gotten embedded into the public consciousness, whether factual or not. Especially when narratives are couched as “histories,” a certain authority or legitimacy is conferred upon what is actually a specific set of values, norms, and perspectives that in turn changes popular reactions to events.

His book is important because, while many such analyses of the social construction of memory have been made of other seminal events, such as the Civil War or the Holocaust, most books on WWI focus stay down in the trenches, so to speak.

One of the important points Reynolds makes about the construction of WWI history relates to the nature of the source documents used, particularly right after the war. When dealing with events that took place over a variety of countries in which different languages are spoken, it is critical to get information from all parties, both the vanquished and the triumphant. But this was not the case after WWI. Reynolds writes:

"...in the 1920s and 1930s most scholars of the origins of the Great War relied heavily on German materials. These served as the basis for the influential works of American revisionist historians....”

As a result of using the fragmentary German documents (many of them had been destroyed, falsified, or removed by the Russians and unavailable until after Stalin’s death), a massive legacy of disinformation ensued, foremost of which was the belief promulgated that “nobody wanted war” in 1914; that the precipitating crisis was “a gigantic muddle”; and that the nations involved “slithered over the brink into the broiling cauldron” quite blindly. By the 1930s it was hard, Reynolds contends, even for Great Britain to believe that Germany had played a major role in bringing about the war. (Certainly, and most unfortunately, Germans themselves believed the selective information they received that the war was a “defensive” one, for which they therefore suffered unfairly.) Even now, some respected scholars argue that the nations of Europe “sleepwalked” into the conflict. [See, for example, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark.]

In fact, the “sleepwalking” theme has had amazing staying power, for a variety of reasons explored by Reynolds. The upshot, however, is that the dominant narrative of WWI - i.e., a war started by “a succession of accidents”; “a family quarrel among the crowned heads of Europe”; senseless carnage informed by no clear war aims, is absolutely still embedded in public consciousness. But it is, much to the chagrin of historians, certainly not the case. [See, for example, Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War by Max Hastings, and The War That Ended Peace by Margaret McMillan. Both of these scholars bemoan the way in which Germany’s large role in the genesis of the war has gotten obfuscated over time.]

Reynolds goes further to suggest that part of the power of the revisionist histories can be attributed to a major cultural development, and that was the technological advancement of artistic media - especially in the form of sound movies and later television. This changed the game of memory construction altogether. He credits the breathtaking power of movies, especially because of their novelty and their emotional impact, for creating an iconography of enduring images and establishing a narrative pattern that changed the way everyone remembered the war. (For example, many believe that the war was primarily fought in trenches, because of the overwhelming number of striking images of that phase of the war.) Reynolds even cites some historians as charging that “there were virtually two Western Fronts - the literary and the historical.”

Artistic creations focused on several recurring themes. In Europe, the predominant message was one of the horror of war, fought in muddy deprivation by young romantically heroic men fated to die meaningless deaths. Poems and paintings reinforced those images. In the U.S., by contrast, the war was portrayed as a great adventure, with American men as heroes, beloved by comrades and beautiful women alike, rescuing the desperate continent and “saving the world” for democracy.

When the continent once again became roiled in war preparations, the European message especially was not very convenient, and needed to be rewritten.

In Germany in particular, the outcome of the war had to be refashioned. Thus, Germany used a very distorted picture of the unfairness of the reparations clause in the Treaty of Versailles to accomplish several goals: deflect attention from the fact that they imposed an even bigger reparations burden on France after its defeat by Germany in 1871; blame the reparations bill rather than an inept government for the failure of their economic policies after the War; and help promulgate the “stab in the back” myth that allowed the political takeover of a militaristic party to help restore Germany’s glory. The interwar government, worried about Bolshevism, never saw fit to mention to the public that British and American bankers provided funds to support a new German currency and helped restructure reparations payments at a lower level, backed by an international loan. Between 1924 and 1930, Reynolds points out, German borrowed almost three times what it paid in reparations. The interpretation of reality by Germany, however, was shaped to alter the terrain of popular knowledge in order to help legitimate the representation of Germany as an innocent victim, deserving of revenge.

Reynolds also warns us to guard against retrospective assessments. For instance, Neville Chamberlain is now reviled for having “appeased” Hitler at Munich, but at the time, Chamberlain was responding to the absolute “gut-wrenching fear” in Britain over the possibility of a war enhanced by aerial bombers. (Whereas England had always felt a modicum of security by virtue of its geographical isolation, the populace was in a panic over the idea that Germany (or other aggressors) could now reach them quite handily by air, and moreover, wreak havoc in a way that would make no distinction between combatants and civilians.) But once it became clear just what kind of evil was unleashed with Hitler, everyone in Britain was eager to disown Chamberlain’s policies, blaming Britain’s inaction on just that one man, and grabbing on to the lifesaver of Churchill’s outstanding oratorical mastery to reframe who the British were.

One other notable instance of WWI historical reconstruction highlighted by Reynolds pertains to the role of the U.S. president, Woodrow Wilson. It is interesting to hear a British scholar’s perspective about the effect of Wilson on world events subsequent to WWI. In America, Wilson has been white-washed in many ways (not least of which to cover up his vile racist attitudes and actions, not only domestically but with respect to his rejection of a “racial equality” clause for the League of Nations), and restyled in public memory to have been a man desperate to bring peace to the world. But by Reynold’s account, Wilson did the opposite, and was notably unpopular for it abroad. By lecturing Europe on the need for “self-determination” of minorities, he roiled up anticolonial agitators and alienated most of the other world leaders, who scoffed at him for his hypocrisy and excoriated him for not understanding the effects “his seductive words would set in motion.” In response to the hostility of the Allied leadership against Wilson for stirring up trouble without knowing what he was talking about, Wilson not only backed down, stating that he had spoken “without the knowledge that nationalities existed....” but acquiesced in the imperialist policies of his allies. That precipitated a backlash against Wilson throughout the world outside America by the people as well as their leaders, with disillusioned nationalists turning to communism. Reynolds argues, “Right across the colonial world, in fact, Leninism gained from Wilson’s shattered credibility.”

Discussion: Just as selective use of documents promulgate a certain view of what happened and why, the vivid use of images shape what people remember, or by their omission, what people forget. The ability to impose a view is what is at stake with the spate of new works by so many scholars in honor of the 100th anniversary of World War I. Reynolds reminds us that these histories will be far from value-free, and that history too exists within a complex ideological web. These narratives not only help define who we are and who we were, but are pedagogical, setting the stage for future actions. As Reynolds makes apparent, the memory of World War I is still being renegotiated, even now.

Evaluation: This book is by no means just a hermeneutical analysis of World War I interpretation. It is also a densely packed account of what happened during and after the war. But overarching the details is the theme that since “lessons from the last war would guide planning for the next,” what was contained in those lessons varied by country, ideology, and political agendas. Thus perceptions of what happened have changed over time. As historian James Young famously observed, “Memory is never shaped in a vacuum; the motives of history are never pure.” We would do well to remember this as we confront the barrage of new histories coming out now on World War I.½

The average contemporary Brit probably knows only a couple of things about the presence of GIs in wartime Britain: that they were 'overpaid, overfed, oversexed and over here', and maybe also to pat ourselves on the back that black GIs were treated better in the UK than at home, where segregation was still a reality. Self-serving images, obviously, but these are what you get from reading, particularly, contemporary fiction about the 'home front'.

This book adds some complexity to those perceptions. Overpaid? Well, it's more that British soldiers were chronically underpaid, although the problem was exacerbated by the fact the US army gave soldiers all their pay at the end of each month, unlike the Canadians who had a compulsory savings scheme for 50% of the salary (and still had more spending money than the Brits). Overfed? The US hadn't been through a long period of wartime rationing like the UK, and the meat ration for GIs was three times that of British civilians (and double that of the British solder). Despite this, food seems to have been a major complaint of the GIs - it's amazing the number of times wanting to have a coke, or a proper coffee, crops up in the book. (This adds extra meaning to the photo on the cover, of a GI looking amused as a local woman pours him another cup of tea).

Oversexed? Well, the GIs had more spending money, probably looked healthier (all that meat), had more flattering uniforms, and had a different dating style that the local girls weren't used to - no less an authority than Margaret Mead studied this and concluded that in the US, "a really successful date is one in which the boy asks for everything and gets nothing, except a lot of words, skilful, gay, witty words ... this game is confusing to the British". Someone with more direct experience of this, "an 8th Air Force navigator who was based in wartime Norfolk, observed that back home American adolescents were expected to make a pass on a date; the test for the girl was her adroitness in saying no. In Britain, he reckoned, girls expected the men to show restraint". In any case, the outcome seems to have been, often, that a British girl took American advances as being more serious than they actually were. And of course, the shadow of death hanging over everyone, and the boredom of wartime work, changed the way that people interacted with each other. (Incidentally, the disapproval seems to have been as great on the US side - a Gallup poll in the US in April 1946 found that 36% of respondents disapproved of GIs marrying 'English girls').

As for segregation, the US army wanted to maintain segregation in practice, and the British authorities were, by and large, happy to let them. The War Department asked for a "reasonable proportion" of black troops to be sent. And while there seem to have been many incidents where local civilians took the side of black GIs who were being abused by white GIs for, say, sitting quietly in a pub, the official UK response was to try and 'educate' the British public that this was not how things were done in the US. There was even a Whitehall proposal to discourage British women from going out with black GIs by starting a whispering campaign about the increased likelihood of VD, although fortunately that was not agreed. It seems that a lot of ordinary Brits liked the black troops because they were less prone to swagger and braggadocio than other GIs - "I don't mind the Yanks, but I don't much care for the white fellows they've brought with them", went one joke - although higher up the social scale there was more prejudice and at all levels there was a certain disapproval of cross-racial relationships.

What about the general relations between the Brits and Americans? Of course, it's a mixed picture. Some got on very well, some never had a conversation with the other nationality, and for some, even getting to know their hosts or guests did not lead to better relations. Generally, British stereotypes of Americans (extrovert, materialist, energetic, boastful, confident, brash) seem to have stayed the same from before the war to, well, now, with a break towards the end of the war when wounded GIs were being evacuated to the UK and it was evident how tough the fighting was. (It was also the case that the East Anglian villages where the fighter squadrons were stationed had a better view of the US forces because they could see their contribution to the war; while most GIs elsewhere in the UK were waiting to go and fight.)

This book is extremely wide-ranging - almost too much so. I am interested (as you can tell from my summary) in the social history, but less so in the political and military aspects of the relationship, of which there is plenty. But one of the strengths of the book was the way that it set the relationship in context, historically (reminding us for instance that most of the 'overfed' GIs had grown up during the Great Depression) but also thematically - the nature of fighting a war, of being in an army, of military-civilian relationships. French perceptions of the British Expeditionary Force during WWI were very similar to the UK's perception of GIs. All this, for me, made up for the fact that I had to skim through the military strategy parts. For anyone interested in those aspects as well, this would be a highly recommended read.½

Quite superb. It doesn't sound like a promising topic, but is a very neat way of summarising some of the most important issues and key players in 20th Century history. Apart from adopting an appealing, fly on the wall, documentary narrative technique that leaves you feeling as though you have a much better grasp of the characters of the key players Reynolds also turns some of the standard canards on their heads.
Reagan comes out better than expected....a dedicated cold warrior yes, but one who really wanted to make progress on abolishing nuclear weapons. Carter - guilty of devoting too much time to the Middle East and not enough to domestic matters, but the only US leader able to grasp all of the details and react swiftly to changing events. Nixon and Kissinger - would have been capable of so much more if they had been to suspend their addiction to secrecy, deceit and double dealing with their own colleagues.
One key lesson is the importance of health. Roosevelt, Churchill, Chamberlain, and for me surprisingly, Kennedy approached major summits in very poor health - but were too proud to admit it. Not suprisingly, they came out second best to healthy opponents. There's a lesson there for all of us with a tendency to overwork...

The title of this book gives a great hint as to what this book is about - commanding history. This relates not only to history making in time time it is being made, but also history making when it comes to setting the record. And then again, it doesn't.
The author provides an extremely detailed account of the writing of Winston Churchill monumental 6 volume work World War II. How does an author write the history when so many documents belong to the government, and when many are secret? How to make it worthwhile when the government threatens the tax almost all of the earnings? How to get the most out of book publishers and newspapers in many countries? How to get the work done when time is so short? How to fund holidays on the continent? And how, most importantly, how to make sure that the author comes out looking best?
What comes out is now not a great secret: Churchill nearly manipulated the public service to work for him to get access to documents, but still managed to avoid (to his disadvantage) mentioning the Ultra Secret - Bletchley Park; he set up a trust; but still made a record amount of money from a publisher deal; he had a team of writers and researchers, but stressed deadlines to beyond the limit; he convinced the American publishers that a holiday in Europe or North Africa was needed to get stuck into the writing; and he fibbed a lot.
The account is thorough - perhaps a bit too much, but then the story would be incomplete. The most interesting parts are where Reynolds analyses what Churchill 'wrote' and places it alongside the facts - and Churchill does not come out of it looking good. Yet, we know that we ended the war as a winner (despite loosing government) and this was strengthened by these books. Errors, conflicting accounts, and threats of lawsuits did not get in the way of a very popular book.
However, Churchill is still treated with respect. And allowances are made for the fact that he was operating in a climate of the Cold War, in which the Russians could not come out looking too good, but yet still not upset too much. And Churchill also had an electorate to whoo - he twice attempted a return as Prime Minister, the second time successfully.
I suggest reading this book only after reading Churchill's volumes.

This book sets out to cover the issues contributing to a global history in the post-war world since 1945 including political, social, technological and cultural changes. Reynolds discusses the march of capitalism and the erosion of the state, the cold war, East and West Germany, Japan, China, Korea, India, Africa, Vietnam, Israel, Islam, genetics, nuclear power etc. A fairly good summary of the time period and a useful reference book for those studying this topic. Included are maps, further reading, notes and an index.½

A collection of essays on various topics germane to an understanding of the major currents and trajectories in mid to late 20th Century world affairs. Some of the essays seem dated and do not reflect more current thinking and release of original documentation. The book would benefit from the author's review and updating especially to reflect recently opened hitherto secret files in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

READ 2015.