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."