Moral combat
Subtitle: good and evil in World War II
By: Michael Burleigh
Edition: 1st U.S. ed.
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2011
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 650
ISBN-13: 9780060580971; 9780007195770
Subjects: Moral and ethical aspects; World War, 1939-1945
Description: British historian Burleigh (Blood Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism) delivers a long, riveting account of the awful atrocities of WWII and the perverted reasoning behind them. Burleigh explains that Communist, Nazi, Fascist, and Japanese systems claimed to be regimes of public virtue carrying out inexorable historical processes. Proclaiming that the only evil was obstructing this march to utopia, they discarded the rule of law and alternative moral authority (religion, ethics).
Notes: Originally published in Great Britain in 2010.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The predators; title: Appeasement; title: Brotherly enemies; title: The rape of Poland; title: Trampling the remains; title: Not losing: Churchill's Britain; title: Under the swastika: Nazi occupied Europe; title: Barbarossa; title: Global war; title: The resistance; title: Moral calculus; title: Beneath the mask of command; title: Antagonistic allies; title: 'We were savages': combat soldiers; title: Massacring the innocents; title: Journeys through night; title: Observing an avalanche; title: Tenuous altruism; title: 'The King's thunderbolts are righteous': RAF Bomber Command; title: Is that Britain?; title: No, it's Brittany; title: The predators at bay.