Human Smoke

Blurb

Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization is a 2008 book by Nicholson Baker about World War II. The book questions the commonly held belief that the Allies wanted to avoid the war at all costs but were forced into action by Hitler's unrelenting crusade. It consists largely of official government transcripts, newspaper articles and other documents from the time with Baker interjecting commentary only occasionally. Baker cites documents that suggest that the leaders of the United States and the United Kingdom were provoking Germany and Japan into war and that the leaders of those two nations had ulterior motives for participating. Baker dedicates the book to American and British pacifists of the time who, in the book's epilogue, he states had it right all along: “They failed, but they were right.”