The End of Glory: An Interpretation of the Origins of World War II

by Laurence Lafore

Focusing on the diplomatic history of Europe from 1919 to 1939, Lafore asserts that World War II resulted largely from efforts of the European Powers to run affairs with institutions and ideas made obsolete by World War I. By 1919 the Great Powers of the nineteenth century were dismembered or exhausted, and the Great Powers of the twentieth century, Russia and the United States, lingered in the wings, unwilling to assume their new roles as arbiters of Europe's and the world's fate. The old diplomatic machinery no longer worked, and no one was capable of devising a means for re-establishing a balance of power. Even Churchill, the author points out, did many of the right things for the wrong reasons. The End of Glory provides an accessible view of interwar diplomacy and describes the tragic decades of the 1920s and 1930s with dramatic clarity.

Genres: History, World War II

Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

Reviews

[A · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good overview of the between world war years. Nothing special though.

[Mark Singer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A somewhat chatty investigation of the origins of the Second World War that focuses on diplomacy and misconceptions. Lafore's basic premise is that the men in charge of the United Kingdom and France were acting as if it was still the 19th century and did not realize that the old formulas of diplomacy would not work in the age of the dictatorships. All the European leaders, the democracies and dictatorships included, still saw Europe as the center of the world and ignored the United States and the Soviet Union. Both the USA and the USSR had been excluded from Europe for differing reasons; the US due to self-imposed isolation despite its massive economic strength, and the USSR, which was feared by the West because of communism, refused to be drawn into any European conflict unless it could dictate its own terms.