The Forced War - Hardcover

Hoggan, David L

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0939484811 ISBN 13: 9780939484812

Publisher: Legion for the Survival of Freedom, 2023

Synopsis

Based on the author's Harvard University doctoral dissertation, this masterful study of the origins of the Second World War is diplomatic history of the first order.

The Forced War earned praise from the eminent American historian and sociologist Harry E. Barnes, who called it "the first thorough study of the responsibility for the causes of the Second World War in any language ... likely to remain the definitive revisionist work on this subject for many years."

David Hoggan explains why Hitler decided to attack Poland in 1939 and examines the shortsighted policies that made war all but inevitable. He examines the familiar claims about British "appeasement," the "shameful" Munich agreement, and the "rape" of Czechoslovakia. He dismantles the often-repeated charge of sole German responsibility for the 1939 war, which for many years has been a centerpiece of the prevailing narrative of twentieth century history.

Britain's actual foreign policy moves following its fateful March 31, 1939, "blank check" guarantee to Poland, Hoggan writes, "were directed unrelentingly toward war." During the months leading to the outbreak of hostilities, he adds, "Britain was encouraging Poland to adopt a hostile policy toward Germany de- spite the generous terms which Hitler had offered for a lasting German-Polish settlement."

"The unreasonable attitude adopted by the Polish government in 1939 is no mystery when one considers the grandiose British assurances to Poland after August 1938," Hoggan concludes. "The Polish leaders made a German-Polish war inevitable by creating a permanent crisis and refusing to negotiate for its solution.

Completely reset and reformatted new edition.

About this title

About the Author

David L. Hoggan (1923-1988) was born and grew up in Portland, Oregon. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II. After study at Reed College, he went on to graduate work at Harvard University where, in 1948, he earned a Ph.D. in history. After Harvard, he studied and taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Amerika Institut of the University of Munich, the University of California at Berkeley, San Francisco State College, and Carthage Lutheran College in Illinois.Harry Elmer Barnes, one of the most influential American historians of the twentieth century, was impressed with Hoggan's work. Barnes encouraged him to expand his Harvard doctoral dissertation on German-Polish relations in 1938-1939 into a book- length historical study.

Edition details

• Publisher: Legion for the Survival of Freedom
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0939484811
• ISBN 13: 9780939484812
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 842