Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931-1945

Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931-1945 by Richard Overy

This is a very long book on World War II. It presents as a thesis that this war was the end of imperial battles. Then it goes on to cover just about every aspect of the war from this view. Japan thought they were civilizing Asia, and thus wanted to exert control everywhere. Italy wanted to have an empire because everyone else dead, and thus had some disastrous adventures in Africa. Germany's imperial ambitions were curtailed by World War I peace. These exploded in their land takings in the war.

It is interesting to hear about agreements among China, Russia, US and Britain. They were all somewhat united in the war - only to split significantly afterward. (Though Russia did seem to be upset with the priorities during the war. Maybe this was a sign of things to come.)

The book goes through various different themes of warfare and uses that to provide an entire history of World War II. The different belligerents had their own culture that they brought with them. The "rules of war" were different from one to another. The desire for empires was also different.

There was some interesting discussions on Jews and Israel from an imperial point of few. The Jews were among others that were scapegoated. They also lacked their own homeland. Britain had domain over Palestine and was concerned with the impact the Jewish homeland would have on their empire. Britain also had concerns throughout the world with the impacts on their empire.

The book concludes with the "long tails" of empire. Imperial powers reluctantly gave up their interests in ruling over vast areas of land. However, they continued to have a desire for influence. Wars in Korea and Vietnam were fought over former colonies making the "wrong" ideological concern. Both the USSR and USA exercised significant influence, yet the states still maintained their independence (aside form the ones included in the USSR) Today many groups of people have sought to seek their own land and have their own nation state.