Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker

This book is almost the exact opposite — a huge, sweeping nonfiction work about the origins of the Second World War. It's unusual, too: Baker tells you about the rise of Hitler, and the world's reaction to it, in hundreds of bite-sized pieces, often culled from the newspapers of the day. It's an excellent technique — we find ourselves looking at vignettes of Churchill, Chamberlain, Hitler and Roosevelt, as well as lots of others, including pacifists such as Gandhi and the American Clarence Pickett. You get the impression that war has a peculiar, sustaining force about it, and that, after a certain point, it's inevitable. Nicholson's message, controversial to some, is: don't do it! Nip it in the bud before it's too late!

Synopsis by Foyles.co.uk

At a time when the West seems ever more eager to call on military aggression as a means of securing international peace, Nicholson Baker's provocative narrative exploring the political misjudgements and personal biases that gave birth to the terrifying consequences of the Second World War could not be more pertinent. With original and controversial insights brought about by meticulous research, Human Smoke re-evaluates the political turning points that led up to war and in so doing challenges some of the treasured myths we hold about how war came about and how atrocities like the Holocaust were able to happen. Baker reminds us, for instance, not to forget that it was thanks in great part to Churchill and England that Mussolini ascended to power so quickly, and that, before leading the United States against Nazi Germany, a young FDR spent much of his time lobbying for a restriction in the number of Jews admitted to Harvard.Conversely, Human Smoke also reminds us of those who had the foresight to anticipate the coming bloodshed and the courage to oppose the tide of history, as Gandhi demonstrated when he made his symbolic walk to the ocean -- for which he was immediately imprisoned by the British. Praised by critics and readers alike for his gifted writing and exquisitely observant eye, Baker offers a combination of sweeping narrative history and a series of finely delineated vignettes of the individuals and moments that shaped history that is guaranteed to spark new dialogue on the subject.