Saving Private Power: The Hidden History of "The Good War"

by Michael Zezima

Saving Private Power questions the ultra-patriotic assumptions we have been taught since birth. The U.S. did not enter WWII to end the Holocaust, to make the world a safer place, or to stop fascism. The opposite is true. The U.S. business class traded with Hitler and Mussolini up to and even during the war. Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh's public Hitlerphilia were symbolic of big business's admiration for Hitler's anticommunism. Using techniques gleaned from modern advertising, the U.S. Office of War Information injected anti-Japanese bloodlust and hysteria into the population. When the U.S. killed 672,000 Japanese through indiscriminate bombing, even Secretary of War Henry Stimson wondered why "there has never been a protest over...such extraordinarily heavy loss of life. There is something wrong with a country where no one questions that". Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation are cashing in on the revived interest in World War II. But time's up for the trafficers of cheap nostalgia. The media elite have sold us the myth about the U.S.'s noble role in the "Good War" for too long and the facade is beginning to crack. The recent release of John Cornwell's Hitler's Pope is only the beginning. Saving Private Power digs deeper, to find the truth about the this war and the world it left in its wake.

Genres: History, American, Nonfiction, War

214 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2000

About the author

Real name of author Mickey Z.

Reviews

[Maurizio Codogno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Non stiamo parlando di revisionismo. Non è che si neghino gli orrori hitleriani. Ma in questo saggio viene organicamente presentata una serie di documenti che mostra come il mito degli americani che vanno in guerra per portare la liberta agli europei oppressi sia per l'appunto un mito; che gli alti vertici americani sapevano della Soluzione Finale già alla fine degli anni '30; che il razzismo statunitense non era certo inferiore a quello tedesco. Alcuni punti sono un po' tirati per i capelli, come ad esempio l'idea che senza gli aiuti americani il Fronte Popolare nel '48 avrebbe stravinto; altri sono questionabili, ma bisogna dire che generalmente vengono anche indicate voci diverse dalla tesi principale. Il libro tratta principalmente della seconda guerra mondiale, ma spazia dalla Grande Guerra al Vietnam; la cosa che mi ha lasciato più sconcertato è però il vedere indicati atteggiamenti che sembravano scopiazzati dall'invasione irachena da parte degli USA nel 2003... in un testo del 2000. Questi yankee sono davvero prevedibili. Ottima la traduzione, Ballarini è sempre apprezzabile.

[Raewyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and insightful (but slightly brief) look at the wars of the 20th century and the true influences behind them. You weren't taught this about your country in school, so what else were you lied to about?

[Kym Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good book to include in ones history collection, offering an alternative take to popular historical 'truths'. The book confronts the illusion that good and bad exist in Warfare and seeks to remove the notion that World War Two was an entirely good fight.

While it does make for compelling reading and is a must have for historical readers and collectors at times it seems to go after business more than actual Government and those in power who created much of the vile calamity which this book covers.

A good read all the same.

75 %

[sologdin · Rating 2 out of 5]

it's not wrong, just not news. I do think though that there is room for respectful disagreement over some of the ideas here (such as whether FDR personally allowed the Japanese attack to succeed and so on).

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting bits of history about WWII that aren't commonly told in general mythology about that era.