The Suicidal Embrace: Hitler, the Allies and the Origins of the Second World War

The road to World War II is filled with contradictions. The Allies predicted what Hitler was going to do and said the only thing that could stop him was the threat of force. Yet, at every turn they adopted the opposite policy. The irrational motives behind these contradictions help explain how the actions of the Allies brought about the very things they were trying to prevent. THE SUICIDAL EMBRACE is organized around David Beisel's pioneering treatment of the war as a deadly family quarrel in more than a figurative sense--as the dread implosion of a dysfunctional family of nations imbued with the same unruly passions and tensions as the biological families composing it.