1939: A People’s History of the Coming of the Second World War

British historian Taylor (Coventry) delivers an incisive survey of “the experience[s] of the people living day by day, week by week, through the chaotic and unpredictable time immediately preceding the outbreak of the Second World War.” Juxtaposing British and German perspectives, Taylor chronicles the year between the 1938 Munich Agreement and the 1939 invasion of Poland, drawing on personal diaries, published memoirs, newspaper accounts, and oral histories to examine how “the mass of the people” in both countries went from not wanting war to tolerating it with “grim determination.” British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, Taylor shows, at first received “almost unanimous” praise from the press for his appeasement policy, but “hardly anyone” thought Hitler would stop with annexing the Sudeten territories of Czechoslovakia. Following Kristallnacht in November 1938, ordinary Britons saw the Nazi regime as “barbaric” and “guided by unhinged personalities,” but remained largely ambivalent about Jewish refugees. In Germany, meanwhile, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels waged a yearlong disinformation campaign that convinced even some German Jews to support the invasion of Poland. Taylor’s research impresses, though the granularity of detail may daunt all but the most dedicated of readers, and a through line about German serial killer Johann Eichhorn seems out of place. This exhaustive deep-dive offers fresh insights into how WWII happened. (May)