common. and perhaps even new, not necessarily new because of my perspective, but evidence that have been overlooked, or insufficiently emphasized. so in this sense some portions of this book could be called revisions. by revisionist, i mean my approach, my description, my analysis of certain things that happened our to a considerable extent contrary to what is the accepted view, and following the accepted view of many professional historians. i don't think -- make a big production out of this, but because i have been convinced for decades and more than one way all history is revisionist. history is the constant revisiting, rethinking, and sometimes rewriting the past. because we only know the past from the present that as a matter fact, we often see differently, sometimes because new evidence is prop up that make it necessary, or at least proper to revise some accepted ideas and even accepted descriptions. but goodness, not all. since we see the past consequently differently, there is often time and good reason to revise the existing view because of our perspective. you see, in this respect, this is one of the great differences. there are others. hope there are not too many lawyers here. between history and the law. you see, the historian deals with multiple jeopardy. you see in law are accusation or case and only be adjusted, declared once. in history, we inevitably constantly rethink the past and so forth. i don't want to repeat, but on the base of new evidence but not necessary on the base of new evidence is, because we see it differently. and this is perfectly all right. this is one of the differences between history and the law. you see, when we think of evidence, we think of law. but there are great differences. you see, the purpose of law, at least in civilized countries, is not so much to establish justice in a fixed way. it is the purpose of law must be be a limitation of injustice is. and the purpose of history is not, it cannot be to fix the truth, no matter how small the detail, no matter how, about how small a detail, but to eliminate untruths. and to be leaving, -- believe me, in the enormous cathedral of history, including works that professional historians have written, the are plenty of untruths currently. and to eliminate them, at least in wars, to liquidate them, to dismiss them is something very important. now, the second world war now ended 65 years ago, and it left a curiously large legacy. and by legacy i don't mean its consequences. consequences have been enormous amount of both, issues a happens with every decor. there are all kinds of consequences, some of them very long range, and some of them, if this is true, this is so in our individual lives, unintended consequences. but now i'm speaking about not so much about the consequences, but the constantly rethinking of that war. it is different from the first world war. the first world war in a way left perhaps even a greater change in history in the world than the second. but all the revisionism in the first world war pretty much concentrated on, sometimes alleged, sometimes real, and justices of the peace treaties. there's an enormous literature, still growing over the first real war. it was principally responsible for the first world war germans and the french or the russians? are the serbians or the austrians general staffs, ministers, and so forth. this is not so with the second world war. one thing i'm going to come back to this, which is undeniable, that the second world war, the war broke out in 1939, there was one man who was responsible for this, and this was hitler. the second world war was hitler's war. all the others who have contributed to the breakout of the second world war, september 1939, russians, british, french. the worst you can say about them that their faults were false of commission, not a mission. i told you a moment ago that our entire libraries and they're still growing, discussing who was principally responsible for the first world war. this is the difference between history and the evolution of history of the first and second world war. another difference is, and i will come back to this, that there is a considerable number of people in all countries who openly or somewhat in a hidden fashion say the second world war was an say. should not have been born. for example, they should have not fought hitler. there is a considerable number, amount of people in all kinds of countries who still think this. again, something that did not happen about the first world war. even germans who had reason to challenge the accepted view that germany was principally responsible for the first world war. don't argue, they argue that the wars were a mistake. now you must understand that the first world war, the second world war was one man's war, hitler was the only one who wanted war in september 1939. this again is a complex thing because he was not a simple person. this is not because he enjoyed war that much. he thought, and actually wrong, by 1939 that time is working against germany. and if a war has to break, if the germany has to translate its ambitions into territory, into a limiting an independent poland and so forth, this is the time to do it. this is again a very complex thing, because i have a chapter about this, and this war, and this book that should not be exaggerated because it is only one of seven chapters. and it is entitled some questions about hitler. and hitler deserves, the proper now, a great number of questions because he was a very complex, and i must say, a very intelligent human being. i mean, by intelligent, i don't want to praise him, but he certainly was not a madman. he certainly wasn't a fanatic. if we think that and say that, we do two things that are very bad. first, we have up solve them of all responsibility or. second, perhaps equally important, we have rushed to hitler problem under the rug. it's not quite as simple as that. and here is an evident example, and is going to say, something that you all know. i mean, this is really an amazing thing. here was hitler, the ruler of germany, the most educated people perhaps in the world, 80 million germans, against them were a ranged the french empire and then the british empire and in the russian empire, and the united states, a total of 300, 400, 500 million people against 80. and it took them six years to defeat him. and it's not only took them six years to defeat him, but neither one of them, nor two of them, would have sufficed to conquer germany. it needed all three of them. even the french aside, the british, the russians. the british and the russians together could not defeat him. stall and on one occasion admitted this. the british and the russian empire could not defeat him. the british and the americans could have stopped him, but without the russians they could not have conquered him. in this respect of the pacific war, which incidentally was much more among the american people against the war in germany, is an exception. because in the pacific, the power of the united states was sufficient to defeat japan. but again, the two things are connected. the amazing thing is that for once popular sentiment and public opinion, notwithstanding the american war against germany, the american involvement in europe, was less popular among the american people than the war in the pacific against japan. and yet, both president roosevelt and the american military planners, relatively early, even before the war, and this is one chapter of the book about america's military planning is. you see, when you write a book you learn something. i knew a fair amount about this period, and about american history of that period. but i thought that the germany first strategy, germany is the principal enemy. germany has to be defeated first. and the defeat of japan would come soon afterwards, consequently. that this was, frankly, roosevelt idea. and he, and that he convinced american military planners staff officers, secret war planners, to go along with him. i learned, there's a chapter about this in the book, that this was not so. that the american military and staff planners thought the same thing. they did not have to be convinced by franklin roosevelt. and that was the right strategy, in spite of its relative unpopularity among the american people, you know. germany had to be defeated first. the defeat of japan is going to come soon afterwards, consequently. but you see, as i told you, germany, they thought the very end, the germans fought for seven or days even after berlin fell and hitler killed himself. i mean, this was an enormous thing. and i repeat to you, 80 million people, with resources, and does go resources that were much smaller than that of the russian and the american and the british empires combined. and it took six years. but what i'm always interested is not only what happens in the military or in industrial field, but what people think. just think of something that has impressed me for a long time, and actually that i do not mention in this book. when germany was defeated, hitler killed himself. germany surrendered in nine -- in may, 1945. about 10 or 20,000 germans committed suicide. and they were these people who kill themselves, were not necessarily nazis. many of them were party members and so forth. and even not necessarily those unfortunate germans who were ravaged by the russians who came as a our bahrke mass into germany -- barbaric mass into germany. were in 1989 the soviet union collapsed and a communist regime collapsed in poland, czechoslovakia, hungary a, romania, yugoslavia. i don't know of a single person who committed suicide. this tells you something, not only of the strength of the germans militarily, but of their conventions. you see, the second world war was worldwide struggle, approximately not precisely, but mainly between three forces. there were the western democracies in scandinavia and so forth, parliamentary, and coordinating by the english-speaking countries, and some western european countries. there was communism, which until the end of the second world war was in coordinating on in russia. that were no communist countries in the world decides the soviet union. and there was a german national socialism which in a way was the strongest of the three. now, in every country, even in china or mongolia and so forth, these three forces existed. some of them were stronger than the others. look at china, for example. in china, there was supported by the british and the americans. there were the chinese communists supported by russia. and there were pro-japanese chinese who all sort of a government of their own, almost at the end of the war. so these three forces existed. all right, but this is not just a thing of the past. the second world war, a lot of the political divisions in the world today almost 70 years at the end of the second world war go back to the second world war. you see, it was not until the 1960s that in america books began to appear with the type of the good war, the greatest generation. well, they all have reasons other owns and altogether, they are not altogether wrong. but in a sense there is no such thing as a good war. except that the war sometimes that has to be fought, and at least i believe that the second world war had to be fought. but it is not a good war, and it is not a war that had to be fought. in the eyes and the minds of millions of people around the world, even today, you know, even today, and these are generations who no longer live the war, who lived through the war, though no longer have memories of the war. you see, by and large in europe and the far, in europe, the number of people who believe that the second world war was a mistake and the germans should not have been fought, amount, and we know this from electoral between 10 and 20% of the lesson, and in germany electoral their tombstone every week and the vote. assess, the german occupation wasn't so bad. pro-nazi party, last sunday cut 16% in the elections. so the interesting thing is, these are three forces, western parliamentary democracy, german national socialism, communism -- communism has practically disappeared. western parliamentary democracy has its own troubles, but there it is. but they are, this is the legacy of the war. there are, as i told you, in austria for example, a party which has campaigned on different levels, but one of them being that the second world war and the german occupation of austria was not so bad. its leaders openly called winston churchill a war criminal. six years ago got 20% of the national vote. i don't think the great danger of these people will ever get to power, but this is interesting. this is something very significant. that this exists. now, it does not hardly exist within our country, you know. no, but in this country, too, there is a considerable number of people, mostly republicans, who soon after the second world war began to feel, and sometimes say, that the second world war was a mistake. that we should have never fought germany, that the great dangers it looked that way. but the entire american conservative movement, and was something new in american history, because it was 1950, no american would dare to call himself a conservative. by 1980, more americans identify themselves as conservatives than they identified themselves as liberals. this is a very interesting thing, and his country being what it is is a good thing, combined a great deal of people. you know, i'm not saying that a majority of conservatives, especially now, identify with this. but, you know, we have very important public figures. for example, a very important intelligence and, patrick buchanan, who has written a book after book say the second world war was a mistake, we shouldn't have gone to germany. anyway, all through the cold war, i think, so-called conservatives who could not be called nazi sympathizers like william buckley. his claim was, and he wrote this and wrote several times, that -- i'm almost putting him -- quoting him verbally -- that in 1917 with russian revolution, history changed gears. well, i think it's not a good metaphor because history is not like a machine. it doesn't change gears. but a century from 1917 onwards, the world was consumed by two forces, democracy and freedom, and communism. if you accept this view, then it is logical that the second world war was an odd episode. it doesn't really fit. it is not important. and this is a very grave misreading of history, and yet a misreading which willy-nilly brought american conservatives to power, and even two or republican party as such. i repeat to you, this does not mean that the majority of the american conservatives, or the majority of republicans, sympathize with hitler. but this oversimplified view of history that, since 1970, and it's almost 100 just ago, the history of the world has been dominated by two forces, democracy and communism, is quite wrong. and that itself to some extent is the legacy of the second world war. and so in conclusion, i spoke too long, the second war, you see, this book is not a history of the second world war, but it is the legacy of the second world war. and a legacy of the second world war oddly and strangely is evident, than the legacy of the first world war. i'm speaking in the thinking of people, not in its actual consequences. the often maddening but also very an amazing factor, alabama, in history that an unintended unpredictable. itself. and the second world war would never be repeated, but some of its legacies are still extant in the minds of people. and now to conclude, i am a somewhat odd historian who believes very strongly that by and large history is made, not by much real forces, but what people think and believe. and so the thoughts and the sentiment and the believes of reflecting back to the second world war, even 60 or 70 years later. you. [applause] >> that is the doctor, and anyone who knows anything about abraham lincoln knows the name alan. i just happened to overhear that he has a new book of gettysburg coming out. so i'm hopeful that i'll be able to possibly persuade him to come here when the book comes out and give a talk about it. about two years ago, we had two doctors together signing books about abraham lincoln. and it was very interesting discussion because the renowned lichen specialists talk about churchill and the other doctor talked about lincoln. will now entertain the questions from the audience you're so please come if you have a >> i have a. i agree with most everything you said, including strange enough that hitler was intelligent. but i kind of disagree that he was a fanatic. being jewish, being a jewish person, i think hitler was absolutely fanatic, and actually the slots we considered inferior. and i probably had as much to do with the defeat of germany as anything. [inaudible] >> depends on the general meaning, not just a dictionary meaning, of the word fanatic. and this is -- i'm glad you brought this out, because here is the difference between two languages, and in a way, to forms of national. obviously, the word fanatic comes from the latin and not from the great. but when we, either in english-speaking countries, say a fanatic, this is almost not exception a bad word. it is a bad adjective. when you look at hitler's speeches, he very often says we have the fanatic well, the fanatic power, the fanatic strength. you see, because probably this has somewhat changed now, but in the 20th century, in other words, this really related directly to your question, the word fanatic in german doesn't sound as bad as in english. this touches on a very important thing. i think, and i have a chapter in his book about hitler, that there were two elements in hitler's hatred, we can call it that, of the jews, that are complementary but not exactly the same. one of them was his principle dislike and content of jews, and so forth. this is a very interesting thing, that actually develops relatively late in his youth. you see some very important books and researchers the past 20 years that there is no special sign of hitler's extreme anti-semitism, when he -- you see, he lied about this. he wrote in "mein kampf" that his recognition of what jews are, and the jews danger develop in vienna where he lived in considerable, not great poverty, considerable poverty between the ages of 18 and 22. it seems now, though it's almost, does it only seem, it is now incontrovertible, that his radical ideas of the jews and others came to him after the war had the age of 30 in munich, not in vienna. it isn't then that is -- you see, hitler was a big talker, but we have no evidence that he talked a great deal in public, and public not at all, and till the 30th year of his life in munich. then he discovers that he is a talented and powerful speaker. and together with this, he discovers that his anti-semitism of jews has echoes among the german people, and of the bavarian people. and so, well, what i mean is there is a duality there that overlaps. is a personal, let's call it anti, i don't even like the word anti-semitism. i think a better word would be judy a phobia, that is personal to you phobia and his knowledge how this phobia can invoke a good appeal, a powerful appeal to the audience come together. you know. i don't think that they overlap, but they cannot be, they should not be separated. you see, so this is just one of the many elements of the complexity of this man. >> do you think it would be fair to say that many of the voices are going against world war ii? are best understood as hecklers and not historical critics? >> i did not quite hear the second part of this. >> yes. do you think those boys is that were opposed and still opposed to world war ii are best understood as hecklers rather than serious historical critics? >> know, as i said there is no such -- for example, in this country, and america first movement isolationist movement, there were all kinds of people, including honest pacifists who really believed that america's entry into the first world war was a mistake, and it should not be repeated. you see, and i don't know whether this answers your question. >> i am just adjusting that there might have been a multiple number of motives producing these voices. and not just legitimate opposition to world war ii. >> yes, this was so.0w1w0s0w this was so, especially in thisw country, just about until pearls harbor. you1s1w1w see, people in the und states were not only isolationists who thought, who were convinced that america help given to britain in 1940 and 41 were not always narrowminded people or shortsighted people. away, and i would say the majority of people today all over the world who think that the second world war was a mistake are people who have, who deplore the outcome of the war and deplore the defeat of germany national socialism. >> first of all, i have to say that you're the only writer i know who can speak without notes contemporaneously and, with perfectly formed, not only senses, but paragraphs. thank you for that. >> would you tell this to my wife? [laughter] >> yes, i will. i believe she is here. and one of your senses i wrote now, it was the purpose of history is not to fix the truth, but to a limited untruth. and i think i got that correctly. >> yes. >> my question is, does that apply to you or is it true to say that over time, the untruth within hope that they will all be eliminated, or are there only a few left? how does that work with the progression of history? >> never all. you know, i mean there are legends in history that live on, and some of them fade as time goes on, you know, become weaker and all that. but it is not given to human beings to eliminate, not only all but most untruth. it is not possible and our personal lives. it is not possible in the lives of -- but this is the task of this. you see, history does not deal with justice. history of attempts to deal with the truth, but truth is a very complicated thing. truth is a much deeper and much more complicated thing than justice. and you see, you can in a way do a lot of construction by pursuing injustice is. now when it comes to our life, not only history, the perfect truth is not given to us as kierkegaard said, the perfect truth is given to god alone. what is given to us is the pursuit of truth. and the truth on to be pursued when this is possible and when this is meaningful. intend to be treated kindly by history, because i intend to it? >> let me tell you a little bit about this. presumption, i know a fair talk about a comparison of churchill and hitler. people think that hitler was a great talker, you know, talking to him. this is actually not true. were true on a certain level. and he did this constantly. so for example, we have hitler's table conversations during the war where he talks to people, his closest associates of bought evidence, written now, that should be taken very carefully because his purpose was to influence people. at the same time, we have two or three hitler statements that i discovered what he says i am a very secretive man. think. nobody will know what i really think. maybe a few on certain occasions, but i keep my now, compared to this, churchill people have criticized him for this. as this is an exaggeration as well as the general said that winston had 10 good ideas every night, 10 ideas every night of which one may be good. you see, churchill was a great -- churchill was a man of the written world. he was a great lover of language. churchill could repeat english and scottish poems by the ream, you know, and so forth. and he often say things that he thought were funny, and i think that's a misstatement, well, history will be written because i'm going to write it, he didn't -- and this sounded good, but he you see, let me cite you and he wrote history of the second writing is what i remember what i know, but it is not history, he says. history will be long to later generations by hope i made a contribution to it. you see, this is in the way the opposite of what he says, that history of the war will be the way i write it. churchill would say many funny things, because he knew they sounded funny. there is a difference, you know. of humor. which is at he the only few evidences we have crude, practical jokes in the very early period of his career when one of his great supporters was goering, yeah, goering was as you know a very that man. once in a while having drunk a would pull out a chair and goering would fall on the floor. you know, and hitler would say this is wonderful. yes? >> on mac. >> no, he did not have a sense of humor which is a great mistake. but his entire attitude to everything, even toward the jews is complicated. this is not -- let me give you two examples. not very well known by historians, and they ought to be. hitler speaks about jews, their limit. but he does not speak of their murder. you see, he never uses that language, even in private conversation. and in 1943, heinrich himmler who was in charge of this horrible gas cans and so forth, brought about a statistic exactly how many jews had been eliminated by the time. he brought it to hitler. he brought the statistician of the to hitler. the report was typed on hitler's special typewriter. get a special typewriter, because at the age of the late '40s, as it happens to many others, his eyes began to lose their power. he needed glasses. he never wanted to be photographed wearing glasses, although we have a few photographed wearing glasses. and people i think, made for him letters so he could read it that statistic of february or march 1943, how many jews had been killed, eliminated, was presented to him. this. you know. and this was a weakness of his. he didn't want to look at unpleasant things. see any photographs of german cities destroyed by the bombing. and then there is a sense of his toward the end of the war which jews are really not a race. jewish race. the jews are a spiritual race. this again goes contrary to the general believe that hitler was a racist. hitler was an extreme nationalist rather than a racist. this is not to defend him. as i told you, not a simple character, not a man who started a world war. i mean, it's not an exaggeration to call the second world war hitler's war. and then keep the germans together until the very end is not something to sneeze at. >> i see another question back there. >> i just appreciated the section -- >> a little louder least speck i appreciate the section she wrote about yalta, and i just have a question. is there a point at which you could kind of elaborate on the idea of the different interpretations of that declaration about a liberated europe, how it was regarded one way by stalin, another way by roosevelt, and kind of a long with that, why did eisenhower make his agreement about where america would stop at the album? in other words, rather than go >> well, let me tell you one thing, and i'm going a little we live in a world where several people are not so simple. if you look at a person, like eisenhower, who certainly deserves some credit, you know, can you say that he came from kansas, abilene, all that, that eisenhower, for example, was a simpler person and ulysses s. grant? you know, no, he wasn't. in a way ulysses s. grant is a simple as eisenhower. eisenhower had, to some extent, a bureaucratic background and so forth, and in march 1945, the united states was allied with the soviet union, and the alliance with the soviet union in the minds of many people, including macarthur, was even more important than the alliance with britain. for many reasons. and eisenhower acted accordingly. at the time, you know. now, this was the same, and did not agree with churchill. churchill didn't have the power at that time to carry through anyhow. but you must understand this is 1945. this is the same eisenhower who, seven years later, becomes president and says to churchill, you want to do with the russians, you cannot do with the russians, the russians are enemies of mankind. and you see, the same eisenhower who, in 1945, saw churchill as somewhat of being too anti-russian in 1952, saw churchill as somebody or haves not sufficiently anti-russian. this was the same man. so you see, i'm never going to write anything else about the second world war, but as you say, it's, it's not an easy subject. yes. >> i don't think enough has been written about the war in eastern europe, the losses the russians took compared to the united states. miniscule casualties here compared to the millions of russians killed by stalin in the '30s and i guess hitler by the in the '40s. while that story ever be told comprehensive list of? how the russians resisted germans? well, it's another miracle. you see, he was bizarre in the first world war was no longer an autocrat. russia was gradually moving toward a liberal system. it had a parliament, not quite like the british and the french. nonetheless, it was allied with britain and france and so forth. and the russians collapsed because the russian people didn't want to fight. here there is russian ruled by a cruel dictator, whose people have murdered or imprisoned millions of russians. and the russians fought. who knows bikes you see, as i told you, our life is full of unintended consequences. and the russians were invaded, and they fought much better than in the first world war, when actually had hitler won, they would have been at his liberated of communism. didn't make any difference. you know, it's very -- is not simple, but again, you see, this is my formulation, and this is why i have such a great admiration for churchill. second world war was not won by the british, was won by roosevelt and stalin. but in 1940, churchill was the man who did not lose it. and that was of tremendous importance. >> thank you again. is a very stimulating afternoon. and thanks to our audience for some very stimulating questions. >> for more about the book go to yale press bought yale.edu. >> we are at the cpac conference talking with mark halperin, one of the offers of game change. can you tell us, did you get the reaction you thought you'd get when you bought this book? >> every author who writes a book hopes it has some success. john and i am we're proud of pleased that we wrote the exact book we set out to right from our very first conversation about it. so it's nice to have to execute a plan and i would say we got a little more success than we had hoped for. >> anything unexpected come from the reaction? >> one of the things we really did hope for, we do know if we would achieve, a potentially been well received by both the left and the right. most applicable today, most of the books being sold at cpac either inspire people on the far left or far right. our hope was to write a nonpartisan book that told about the presidential campaign as a store with great characters and great plots. but from a factual generalist the point of view. as we go to meetings like this and also as we don't talk we do around the country, both left wing and right wing and cable tv as well, we have been heartened and somewhat pleasantly surprised by the fact people are not doing it as a partisan weapon to be used by one side or the other but as a great story that we hope to be told well enough to live up to the maternal. >> did any of the subject in the book contact you after it was published the? you know, we're making a practice them not to be specific about the kind of reaction would've gotten but i can say without exception all the contact we've had from people we wrote about in the book has been positive. people may not like every little thing in the book but they have been pleased with the overall portrait and have been very nice about the book over all. >> do you know what your next project is yet? >> may be. you know, right now ago we have is to try to sell the book. one of our strong beliefs from the beginning was that although it is about a political campaign, this is not a book about politics or politicians so much as it is about interesting people who just happen to be involved in politics. it is a story about couples, married couples involved in a great competition under a lot of pressure. our hope now is rather than think about the next project, trying to extend people, extend the book to people who don't have started think i want to read a book about politics but want to read a book about a great story. >> are you able to read any books or you are on the road trying to sell the book? >> you know, someone very smart hold me to basically have a choice in life these days. you can read some on the web, you can read newspapers or magazines or you can read books. and i tend to be someone who reads a lot of newspapers and magazines. right now my book reading is not at its peak. the x-ray much for your time. next, "animal factory." david kirby looks at the environment impact of industrial dairy, pig and poultry farming. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. . .