The Cold War

Part of what I feel is so interesting about the cold war is that because of nuclear weapons, the two couldn't just have a big war, but had to work through proxy countries. However, what I find more interesting than that is the fact that the proxy countries proved to be so difficult to conquer. It would appear that something like that would be easy - Vietnam had little military strength - but America's quagmire that it ultimately became trapped in would end up revealing the uselessness of warfare during this period, which was part of what was so important - the major countries stopped getting involved, playing the role of the man behind the man rather than directly fighting.

WW2 Land Combat Source Infodump

Now that I've begun my research on the German army during WW2, I'll just link some of my sources here for now: the wikipedia page, the wikipedia page on the German tanks, and a website called Achtung Panzer!

World War 2

The thing that I most like about World War 2's story is the degree to which it seems to follow so many typical heroic tropes. It started, as the book makes clear in its description, Hitler initially conquered France and it shocked the Allies, then it seemed that Britain was alone in a struggle against Hitler, with Russia also fighting him but being barely a friend and at least a very dangerous ally, until America entered the war and saved everybody. The textbook heroic story of the war, I feel, may be a major contributor to the way in which it tends to be viewed as justified, unlike World War 1, whose story was essentially "lots of people die, nothing really happens."

Hitler's Rise to Power

Hitler's rise to power is a fascinating exercise in the power of oratory to control people. According to wikipedia, Hitler's rise to power was largely due to his oratory and organizational abilities, as well as his willingness to use any means to get to where he is. My first thought about the election of Hitler, as with most people, is that he was a mad dictator and there's no way I wouldn't have personally opposed him. However, upon thinking about it, something about having a man come to power who is going to solve all the problems appeals to me on some level. Thinking about a government like ours, where the people are against so many things and have so many little views that the government has to respond to, sometimes I think that it would be better if we could just have one person take over and deal with everything, and that's how I imagine Germany must have felt before Hitler - and now, Hitler is the reason people tend to not give in to those thoughts.