The Total History of World War II: A Catalog of Atrocities and Comprehensive Analysis

We do not emerge unscathed from reading Olivier Wieviorka’s imposing work, Total History of World War II (some 900 pages of texts and more than 100 pages of notes). The patient, detailed, even meticulous description of military operations offered here resembles a catalog of atrocities to such an extent that the image of humanity, or rather inhumanity, which emerges from it forms a deeply damning testimony. Certainly, the observation is not new, historians and witnesses have continued to cry it out since 1945. If the bibliography of works devoted to the period is oceanic, the record of these atrocities perhaps forms their only real point in common.

Was there therefore a need for a new work to confirm this? Yes, without doubt, the necessity of these pages is so compelling when reading. Olivier Wieviorka not only offers a masterful synthesis which is perfectly clear, but also, and this is unique in French, a consideration of all of the conflict, where, contrary to what is so often the norm, the theater of war includes the Asian and North African fields as well as the European field. The part attributed to Japanese aggression against China, Korea, the Philippines and Burma is considerable, as is the detailed account of the war that the United States led against Japan in the Pacific.