Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World

In this monumental and provocative history, Patrick Buchanan argues that, had it not been for the mistakes of British statesmen—first among them Winston Churchill—the horrors of two world wars and the Holocaust might have been avoided and the British Empire might never have fallen into ruins. Half a century of murderous oppression of tens of millions under the iron boot of communist tyranny might never have happened, and Europe's central role in world affairs might have been maintained for many generations.

Among the British and Churchill's mistakes were: • The secret decision of a tiny cabal in the inner cabinet in 1906 to take Britain straight to war against Germany if she attacked France • The revenge Treaty of Versailles that crippled Germany, leaving it embittered, betrayed and receptive to the allure of Adolf Hitler • British capitulation, at Churchill's instigation, in the face of American pressure to end the Anglo-Japanese alliance, insulting and isolating Japan, pushing it to the path of militarism and conquest • Biggest mistake in British history: Unsolicited war guarantee to Poland in March 1939, ensuring World War II

Sure to provoke controversy and heated debate, Churchill, Hitler and the "Unnecessary War" is a magnificent and daring insight into the historical lapses of judgment that ended centuries of European rule and ensured a future that no one who lived in that vanished world could ever have imagined.