In Defense of WWII
Filmed on July 09, 2008

Hanson and Hitchens In Defense of WWII

Victor Davis Hanson and Christopher Hitchens take on the World War II revisionists, focusing first on Patrick J. Buchanan, the author, most recently, of Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. They counter the essential claims in Buchanan’s book that Britain’s guarantee to protect Poland in the event of a German invasion made the war inevitable; that the Holocaust was a consequence of the war and that, without it, the Holocaust may not have occurred; and that Germany invaded Russia only because Britain under Churchill was determined to partner with Russia against Germany. Finally they address two claims made by author Niall Ferguson that “[the Allies] adopted the most brutal tactics of those they were fighting” and that the principal beneficiary of the Second World War was Stalin’s Soviet Union. (39:55) Video transcript

Guests:

• Victor Davis Hanson

  Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is a classicist and an expert on the history of war. A regular contributor to National Review Online and many other national and international publications, he has written or edited sixteen books, including theNew York Times bestseller Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power. His most recent book is A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War. He was awarded a National Humanities Medal by President Bush in 2007.