Many history books are concerned with the what-if's and may-have-been's of critical points in the history of humankind. Thus a history book is often interesting not just for what happened but also for what might have happened had events turned out differently. "Hurrah for the Blackshirts!" is an examination of British fascism in the interwar period. Any consideration of this subject is linked with the broader world picture of the role Britain played ... ...world which would have arisen if Britain had thrown in the towel or even joined the Nazis.
Too often British fascism is dismissed as a loony fringe and is associated solely with Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. Martin Pugh's well-researched book shows there were many different strands to British fascism, predating Mosley, even if most did end up converging with the BUF. A delicate matter tackled head-on is how fascist ideas found great ...
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Advantages: Excellent account of unprecidented war trial Disadvantages: Can be hard reading at times
INTRODUCTION
After the fall of the Third Reich, the Allies of the United Kingdom, France, The United States and Russia were left with the issue of bringing the Nazi leaders to justice. Whatever they decided would set a precedent; no trial in history had previously been conducted for the top brass of a criminal regime. They understood the importance of any decision they made, as it would hold the key to how war criminals once defeated would ... ...of this ground breaking trial.
It is hard to read these kinds of things objectively; for example, my own father served in the British 8th Army during the war, and I would have been a fair way up the regime's hit list, so I can't claim to be in any way neutral. However, I have tried hard to read this book looking from both sides of the trial. It is a great credit to the book that it enables you to do this to a fair degree. Perhaps more fairly that ...
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