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Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: A Critical Examination of the Foreign Policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Its Aftermath
A critical examination of the foreign policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and its aftermath
679 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1969
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 11, 2013
Very good perspective on the folly of United States intervention in European wars and Roosevelt's unconstitutional actions to drive us toward war with Japan in WWII contrary to what he campaigned for during election years.
October 20, 2022
This book, and "The Genesis of the World War" by the same author, were used in the writing of "The Myth of German Villainy " by Benton L. Bradberry.
I highly recommend all three.
You can find the pdf of the three books on archive.org.
I highly recommend all three.
You can find the pdf of the three books on archive.org.
Want to Read
May 21, 2025In reading through this remarkable series of articles about Joseph McCarthy by Ron Unz , I have been encountering the names of what sound like many excellent books. In copying over Ron’s descriptions, I have tried to keep them pretty brief, but in the case of this next one, I let it go very long because it’s all so compelling.
“A few years ago I happened to mention Barnes to an eminent American academic scholar whose general focus in political science and foreign policy was quite similar, and yet the name meant nothing. By the end of the 1930s, Barnes had become a leading critic of America’s proposed involvement in World War II, and was permanently “disappeared” as a consequence, barred from all mainstream media outlets, while a major newspaper chain was heavily pressured into abruptly terminating his long-running syndicated national column in May 1940.
In many respects, Barnes’ situation typified those who fell in the purge. Although many powerful critics of FDR’s presidency had suffered from a considerable amount of government investigation and IRS harassment throughout the 1930s, America’s movement towards involvement in a new world war seems to have been the central factor behind a wider purge of public intellectuals and other political opponents. The combined influence of the pro-British Eastern Establishment together with powerful Jewish groups was deployed to clear the media of opposing figures, and after the Germans broke the Hitler-Stalin Pact by attacking the USSR in June 1941, Communists and other leftists also joined this effort. Polls seem to have shown that as much as 80% of the American public was opposed to such military involvement, so any prominent political or media figure giving voice to that popular super-majority needed to be silenced.
Over a dozen years after his disappearance from our national media, Barnes managed to publish Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, a lengthy collection of essays by scholars and other experts discussing the circumstances surrounding America’s entrance into World War II, and have it produced and distributed by a small printer in Idaho. His own contribution was a 30,000 word essay entitled “Revisionism and the Historical Blackout” and discussed the tremendous obstacles faced by the dissident thinkers of that period.
The book itself was dedicated to the memory of his friend, historian Charles A. Beard. Since the early years of the 20th century, Beard had ranked as an intellectual figure of the greatest stature and influence, co-founder of The New School in New York and serving terms as president of both The American Historical Association and The American Political Science Association. As a leading supporter of the New Deal economic policies, he was overwhelmingly lauded for his views.”
“A few years ago I happened to mention Barnes to an eminent American academic scholar whose general focus in political science and foreign policy was quite similar, and yet the name meant nothing. By the end of the 1930s, Barnes had become a leading critic of America’s proposed involvement in World War II, and was permanently “disappeared” as a consequence, barred from all mainstream media outlets, while a major newspaper chain was heavily pressured into abruptly terminating his long-running syndicated national column in May 1940.
In many respects, Barnes’ situation typified those who fell in the purge. Although many powerful critics of FDR’s presidency had suffered from a considerable amount of government investigation and IRS harassment throughout the 1930s, America’s movement towards involvement in a new world war seems to have been the central factor behind a wider purge of public intellectuals and other political opponents. The combined influence of the pro-British Eastern Establishment together with powerful Jewish groups was deployed to clear the media of opposing figures, and after the Germans broke the Hitler-Stalin Pact by attacking the USSR in June 1941, Communists and other leftists also joined this effort. Polls seem to have shown that as much as 80% of the American public was opposed to such military involvement, so any prominent political or media figure giving voice to that popular super-majority needed to be silenced.
Over a dozen years after his disappearance from our national media, Barnes managed to publish Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, a lengthy collection of essays by scholars and other experts discussing the circumstances surrounding America’s entrance into World War II, and have it produced and distributed by a small printer in Idaho. His own contribution was a 30,000 word essay entitled “Revisionism and the Historical Blackout” and discussed the tremendous obstacles faced by the dissident thinkers of that period.
The book itself was dedicated to the memory of his friend, historian Charles A. Beard. Since the early years of the 20th century, Beard had ranked as an intellectual figure of the greatest stature and influence, co-founder of The New School in New York and serving terms as president of both The American Historical Association and The American Political Science Association. As a leading supporter of the New Deal economic policies, he was overwhelmingly lauded for his views.”
December 17, 2007
Complete and authoritative and highly consistent in its statements.
Want to Read
March 20, 2025"A comprehensive symposium by eight leading Revisionist scholars dealing with all important phases of the second world war insofar as it affected the United States, including the European background and the disastrous aftermath. Especially notable for demonstrating the determined effort of historians, newspaper editors, and commercial publishers to prevent the truth from reaching the American public, and for its exposure of the shameless efforts to stifle the truth concerning Pearl Harbor. The best general book on the causes and results of the entry of the United States into the second world war."
IHR Revisionist Bibliography 1981
https://archive.is/LWkOQ
IHR Revisionist Bibliography 1981
https://archive.is/LWkOQ
January 11, 2026
PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE, edited by Harry Elmer Barnes, is a collection of essays adapted from several revisionist histories published in the late 1940s and early 1950s. These books present the classic case of World War Two revisionism: that Roosevelt deliberately provoked the Japanese attack in order to get the United States into the Second World War.
The chapters by Charles Tansill, Frederick Sanborn, William Neumann and George Morgenstern deal specifically with Roosevelt's maneuvers and machinations in order to involve the United States in the war. The chapter by Percy Grieves deals with the subsequent investigations of the Pearl Harbor attack, and the essay by William Henry Chamberlin is a critical review of the effects of Roosevelt's foreign policy. The essay by George Lundberg is the weakest of the group: a critique of the costly and counterproductive effects of an interventionist foreign policy. Aside from the basic argument that the Roosevelt administration provoked the Japanese attack in order to get the United States into war, the most controversial claim is that Roosevelt chose this aggressive foreign policy in order to aid his reelection in 1940.
The chapters by Charles Tansill, Frederick Sanborn, William Neumann and George Morgenstern deal specifically with Roosevelt's maneuvers and machinations in order to involve the United States in the war. The chapter by Percy Grieves deals with the subsequent investigations of the Pearl Harbor attack, and the essay by William Henry Chamberlin is a critical review of the effects of Roosevelt's foreign policy. The essay by George Lundberg is the weakest of the group: a critique of the costly and counterproductive effects of an interventionist foreign policy. Aside from the basic argument that the Roosevelt administration provoked the Japanese attack in order to get the United States into war, the most controversial claim is that Roosevelt chose this aggressive foreign policy in order to aid his reelection in 1940.
April 24, 2026
First published in 1953 and edited by the American historian Harry Elmer Barnes, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace is a revisionist anthology that seeks to reinterpret the origins and consequences of the major conflicts of the twentieth century, particularly the two World Wars and the emerging Cold War. Written in the early years of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, the volume assembles essays from a range of contributors who challenge what they regard as the orthodox narrative of Western benevolence and defensive war-making. The book is thus best understood as both a historical intervention and a polemical critique of American foreign policy in the mid-twentieth century.
At the core of the anthology lies a sustained argument: that modern warfare, rather than arising from necessity or defensive imperatives, has frequently been the product of elite miscalculation, ideological fervor, and deliberate manipulation of public opinion. Barnes and his collaborators contend that the United States, far from being a reluctant participant in global conflicts, played a more active and at times provocative role in both World Wars. This thesis aligns the work with broader currents of interwar and postwar revisionism, which sought to challenge the “war guilt” narratives codified in the aftermath of the World War I and reinforced after World War II.
The structure of the book reflects its argumentative ambitions. Essays address topics such as the diplomatic origins of the First World War, the neutrality policies of the United States prior to Pearl Harbor, and the strategic decisions that shaped the postwar international order. Particularly notable are the chapters that question the inevitability of American entry into World War II, suggesting instead that economic interests, political alignments, and media narratives contributed to a climate conducive to intervention. In doing so, the contributors position themselves against what they perceive as triumphalist or moralistic historiography.
Methodologically, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace occupies an ambiguous position. On one hand, it draws on documentary evidence, diplomatic correspondence, and contemporary accounts, reflecting the empirical ambitions of mid-century historical scholarship. On the other, critics have long argued that the selection and interpretation of evidence are shaped by a strong ideological predisposition. Barnes himself had, by the time of publication, become associated with a more controversial strain of revisionism, and this context inevitably colors the reception of the work. The anthology’s arguments often rely on inference and reinterpretation rather than archival breakthroughs, leading some scholars to question its evidentiary balance.
From a historiographical perspective, the book is significant less for the definitive accuracy of its claims than for its role in illustrating the persistence of dissenting narratives within American historical writing. It reflects a broader skepticism toward state power and official narratives that would later re-emerge in critiques of Cold War policy and, more broadly, in the historiography of American empire. In this sense, Barnes and his collaborators can be situated within a lineage that includes both earlier progressive historians and later revisionist scholars of U.S. foreign relations.
Nevertheless, the limitations of the volume are considerable. Its tendency toward conspiratorial reasoning, its uneven quality of contributions, and its lack of engagement with countervailing evidence reduce its persuasiveness as a work of scholarly history. Moreover, subsequent historiography—drawing on a far more extensive archival base—has complicated or refuted many of its more sweeping claims. The book’s interpretive framework, which often posits a dichotomy between manipulated publics and calculating elites, risks oversimplifying the complex interplay of structural forces, contingency, and agency in international politics.
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace remains a provocative and contentious contribution to the literature on twentieth-century warfare and American foreign policy. While its arguments must be approached with caution, particularly in light of its methodological and ideological biases, the work retains value as a historical artifact in its own right—one that reveals the contested nature of historical memory and the enduring appeal of revisionist critique. For scholars interested in the evolution of historiography, especially debates surrounding the causes and conduct of modern war, Barnes’s anthology offers a revealing, if problematic, point of departure.
GPT
At the core of the anthology lies a sustained argument: that modern warfare, rather than arising from necessity or defensive imperatives, has frequently been the product of elite miscalculation, ideological fervor, and deliberate manipulation of public opinion. Barnes and his collaborators contend that the United States, far from being a reluctant participant in global conflicts, played a more active and at times provocative role in both World Wars. This thesis aligns the work with broader currents of interwar and postwar revisionism, which sought to challenge the “war guilt” narratives codified in the aftermath of the World War I and reinforced after World War II.
The structure of the book reflects its argumentative ambitions. Essays address topics such as the diplomatic origins of the First World War, the neutrality policies of the United States prior to Pearl Harbor, and the strategic decisions that shaped the postwar international order. Particularly notable are the chapters that question the inevitability of American entry into World War II, suggesting instead that economic interests, political alignments, and media narratives contributed to a climate conducive to intervention. In doing so, the contributors position themselves against what they perceive as triumphalist or moralistic historiography.
Methodologically, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace occupies an ambiguous position. On one hand, it draws on documentary evidence, diplomatic correspondence, and contemporary accounts, reflecting the empirical ambitions of mid-century historical scholarship. On the other, critics have long argued that the selection and interpretation of evidence are shaped by a strong ideological predisposition. Barnes himself had, by the time of publication, become associated with a more controversial strain of revisionism, and this context inevitably colors the reception of the work. The anthology’s arguments often rely on inference and reinterpretation rather than archival breakthroughs, leading some scholars to question its evidentiary balance.
From a historiographical perspective, the book is significant less for the definitive accuracy of its claims than for its role in illustrating the persistence of dissenting narratives within American historical writing. It reflects a broader skepticism toward state power and official narratives that would later re-emerge in critiques of Cold War policy and, more broadly, in the historiography of American empire. In this sense, Barnes and his collaborators can be situated within a lineage that includes both earlier progressive historians and later revisionist scholars of U.S. foreign relations.
Nevertheless, the limitations of the volume are considerable. Its tendency toward conspiratorial reasoning, its uneven quality of contributions, and its lack of engagement with countervailing evidence reduce its persuasiveness as a work of scholarly history. Moreover, subsequent historiography—drawing on a far more extensive archival base—has complicated or refuted many of its more sweeping claims. The book’s interpretive framework, which often posits a dichotomy between manipulated publics and calculating elites, risks oversimplifying the complex interplay of structural forces, contingency, and agency in international politics.
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace remains a provocative and contentious contribution to the literature on twentieth-century warfare and American foreign policy. While its arguments must be approached with caution, particularly in light of its methodological and ideological biases, the work retains value as a historical artifact in its own right—one that reveals the contested nature of historical memory and the enduring appeal of revisionist critique. For scholars interested in the evolution of historiography, especially debates surrounding the causes and conduct of modern war, Barnes’s anthology offers a revealing, if problematic, point of departure.
GPT
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