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: World War II, History

Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

Reviews

[Charles Inglin]

An examination of the causes of World War II. Possibly a little dated now (published in 1970), as historians have had another fifty years to study and debate how it happened, but I think his central themes hold up. The central problem, as the author argues, is the mindset of the allied powers in WWI that they could restore the pre-war world order. In 1914, European empires dominated the world. The first world war effectively undermined that world order, though European diplomats outside Germany and Italy continued to act and think as if things had returned to the pre-war norms. A key result of the first war that affected diplomacy through the 20's and 30's was the rise of the United States and Russia as predominant powers, though the United States' turn towards isolationism and the rapidly industrializing Soviet Union's diplomatic ostracism removed two major factors from European diplomacy at a time when they were needed to counter the rise of the fascist states. The author makes a brief mention of how Lord Halifax, who nearly became prime minister after Chamberlain, continued working to broker a deal with Hitler into 1940, after the war had broken out, which is indicative of how out of touch with reality the they were. That is just one part of a much more complex story which is prone to being over simplified.

[A]

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

[Mark Singer]

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.