Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker

 This book discusses the events between World War I and World War II.  It is written in short vignettes that demonstrate how the feeling about the war was cultivated and how opinions of the general populace changed as time went by.  It covers the years between the early 1920s and when the United States declared war after Pearl Harbor.

Speeches and letters by world leaders are used to demonstrate this.  The leaders include Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt and Gandhi.  It discusses the Jewish question and how Germany was not alone in its cruel treatment of the Jewish population although definitely the worst as that nation attempted to perform a genocide that would erase the Jewish people and culture.  But other nations refused to provide a haven, allowing the concentration camps to be established and used.  The personal opinions of Churchill and Roosevelt were also contemptuous of the Jewish people and considered them less than those of their background.

The antiwar movement is covered as is the roundup by England of their German population into camps.  This was one thing I didn't know about and it preceded the American roundup of the Japanese population.  Another surprising thing was the evidence that those high in the United States government had many warnings of the Pearl Harbor disaster and chose not to act.  Some would call it a sacrifice of those men in order to force the American entry into the war.  It also questions the commonly held belief that the Germans were the first to bomb cities.  England was already bombing before Germany began the Blitz.

Nicholson Baker is an author who has written both fiction and nonfiction.  He is also known as an enemy of the now common practice of libraries moving away from physical books and moving to microfilm and ebooks.  In this novel, he enlightens the average person and provides an alternate way of looking at the years leading to the war and the careful grooming of the general population to support it.  The format of short paragraphs illustrating a point and quotes from newspapers and speeches allows the reader to gain knowledge without being overwhelmed.  This book is recommended for nonfiction readers.