The Origins of the Second World War
  • Published: 31 October 1991
  • ISBN: 9780140136722
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $30.00
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The Origins of the Second World War

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Paperback
31 Oct 1991
EBook
30 Aug 2001
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One of the most popular and controversial historians of the twentieth century, who made his subject accessible to millions, A.J.P. Taylor caused a storm of outrage with this scandalous bestseller. Debunking what were accepted truths about the Second World War, he argued provocatively that Hitler did not set out to cause the war as part of an evil master plan, but blundered into it partly by accident, aided by the shortcomings of others. Fiercely attacked for vindicating Hitler, A.J.P. Taylor’s stringent re-examination of the events preceding the Nazi invasion of Poland on 1st September 1939 opened up new debate, and is now recognized as a brilliant and classic piece of scholarly research.

‘Highly original and penetrating … No one who has digested this enthralling work will ever be able to look at the period again in quite the same way’ Sunday Telegraph.
  • Published: 31 October 1991
  • ISBN: 9780140136722
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $30.00
Categories:
Share…

Praise for The Origins of the Second World War

Taylor's most perfect work of art, a miracle of proportion, language and insight

Robert Skidelsky

A dazzling exercise in revisionism which summed up Taylor's paradoxical, provocative and inventive approach to history

The Times

Taylor was a lifelong dissenter ... at his best - as in The Origins of the Second World War ... he shifted the gorund of major debates

Ben Pimlott, Financial Times

No historian of the past century has been more accessible

Niall Ferguson, Sunday Telegraph

An almost faultless masterpiece

Observer

Highly original and penetrating ... No one who has digested this enthralling work will ever be able to look at the period again in quite the same way

Sunday Telegraph