Free Republic

Patrick J. Buchanan's new contribution to the flourishing genre of World War II revisionism, should appear in the same season as Nicholson Baker's "Human Smoke." Never has there been such a clear demonstration of the way ideological extremes tend to converge. Messrs. Baker and Buchanan probably could not stand to be in the same room for five minutes. The former is to the left of most Democrats, the latter to the right of most Republicans. When they look back to the 1930s, Mr. Baker's role models are the Quakers and pacifists who believed it was better to lie down for...

There are not many moments in history when it is possible to worry that the world has become too happy for its own good. One such moment came in Europe during the late nineteenth century, when the Napoleonic Wars had receded into the distance and the First World War was still hidden over the horizon. For a brief period, it became possible to believe that the West was headed for a condition of permanent peace; that technology, democracy, and globalization were driving a virtuous circle that no atavistic violence could disrupt. This vision never came very close to becoming a...