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Loading... 1946: The Making of the Modern Worldby Victor Sebestyen
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) Faradaydon | Mar 12, 2019 |   ) NoTalentHack | Nov 19, 2016 | Thoroughly researched, the book is highly readable and written with insight and clarity. Its scope goes well beyond Europe and Japan, also including India’s struggles toward independence, France’s attempts to reassert itself in Indochina, the contentious and difficult formations of Israel and Pakistan, colonialism’s dying gasps, and China’s simultaneously occurring communist revolution and war with Japan--one of the many things I learned is that 25% of WWII’s fatalities were in China, more than any other country except the USSR. Some of the most interesting, even eye-opening, parts are revelations about the thoughts, words, and deeds of political leaders, including Roosevelt, Truman, Churchill, Clement Attlee, Stalin, MacArthur, Hirohito, Mao, Chiang Kai-shek, Mei-Ling Soong, Nehru, Gandhi, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, David Ben Gurion, and Menachem Begin. If I had any doubts about the difficulties of occupation or the massive extent of devastation, suffering and displacement that continued well after WWII fighting was over, those uncertainties would have been dispelled forever by this book. Because it was years in the making the author was able to interview many people with personal experiences of the time, giving events a human face and adding poignancy and impact to the history. ( ) Jaylia3 | Oct 19, 2015 | I would not set myself as an expert upon history, but it would be difficult to find another period when the world was so much at a crux. The second world war had just finished and Europe, which had dominated the world for many centuries, had fought itself to a standstill. America was just beginning to move out of a state of isolationism and the USSR was flexing her aggrieved muscle. War, as it usually does, had given additional speed to the technological impetus but Europe had lost a generation and made rash promises to countries, in return for help to fight, which they were now going to be expected to fulfil. It is against this backdrop that Victor Sebestyen attempts to explain the making of the modern world. I must admit, that I thought this to be too tall an order and I could not see how anyone could write this history with an unbiased eye: we are all part of one of the political blocks and will hold our own favours. Mr Sebestyen does exceedingly well. He very rarely lets his prejudices show and manages to take the reader through more machinations of the world leaders than I thought could be fitted into one book. I thought that I had a reasonable knowledge of this period but, I will freely admit that I learned an awful lot from this book. The above may make this seem like a weighty tome but the author manages to make it incredibly readable and, whilst some of the stories are far from pleasant, the overall effect is an enjoyable read. When one has finished this book, one has a far better understanding of so many of the issues still affecting the world almost seventy years later. A definite MUST read book. ( ) the.ken.petersen | Oct 29, 2014 | no reviews | add a review
"A narrative account of the world-changing negotiations of the post-World War II era draws on new archival material and interviews to analyze the influences of discussions surrounding such events as the development of the atomic bomb, Britain's withdrawal from India and the creation of the Israeli state."--NoveList.
A revelatory book about the year that would signal the beginning of the Cold War, the end of the British Empire, and the beginning of the rivalry between the United States and the USSR. Victor Sebestyen reveals the events of 1946 by chronologically framing what was taking place in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, with seminal decisions made by heads of state that would profoundly change the old order. Whether it was the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the Bikini Atoll underwater atomic bomb test, or the Great Calcutta Killings in India, 1946 was a year of seismic events. Sebestyen begins the week before Christmas 1945, when Stalin announced that the USSR would not withdraw its troops from Iran, and ends with Emperor Hirohito's official unveiling of Japan's new constitution. 1946 would see the map of Eastern Europe redrawn, Chinese communists gaining decisive victories, and the birth of Israel. Though Truman, Stalin, Churchill, MacArthur, Ben-Gurion, Hirohito, and Menachem Begin are part of the story, Sebestyen also writes about the enormous suffering and ongoing persecution of civilians in the aftermath of the war: the ethnic cleansing of the German population from Czechoslovakia and Poland; the rise of a violent new anti-Semitism; the civil wars in China and Greece; the mass starvation in Japan, Eastern Europe, and Germany on a scale not seen since the Middle Ages; the spread of diseases; and such total desolation that schools, government, and transportation were nonexistent and currency was worthless. Drawing on personal testimonies and new archival research, Sebestyen has written a vivid narrative that evokes the beginning: of the Cold War in a devastated landscape of dystopian horrors.--Adapted from book jacket. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)909.824History and Geography History World history 1800- 1900-1999, 20th centuryLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4.13)
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