The End of Glory: An Interpretation of the Origins of World War II

Focusing on the diplomatic history of Europe from 1919 to 1939, Lafore asserts that World War II resulted largely from efforts of the European Powers to run affairs with institutions and ideas made obsolete by World War I. By 1919 the Great Powers of the nineteenth century were dismembered or exhausted, and the Great Powers of the twentieth century, Russia and the United States, lingered in the wings, unwilling to assume their new roles as arbiters of Europe's and the world's fate. The old diplomatic machinery no longer worked, and no one was capable of devising a means for re-establishing a balance of power. Even Churchill, the author points out, did many of the right things for the wrong reasons. The End of Glory provides an accessible view of interwar diplomacy and describes the tragic decades of the 1920s and 1930s with dramatic clarity.