World War II History
Video of October 23 Zoom event
Tonight I tried to sketch out the history of the Second World War. At the outset, I expressed the fear that most people under the age of 50 today could not pass a basic quiz on the sequence of events in the war. Few could explain the significance of the Battle of Midway, for example.
During the discussion period, one professor pointed out that his students come to college not even knowing which countries fought on which side in WWII. On the other hand, there is a subset of video gamers who get drawn into learning about the war through the war games they play. Of course, that learning takes place out of school.
There is nothing new about people not knowing much history. About twenty years ago my son had a middle school history teacher who didn't have a clue when the Holocaust was.
If there was no ww2, or if it had been contained via say Germany not winning the battle of France and the holocaust didn’t happen, would anyone be a stand in for “absolute evil” the way Hitler and the Nazi’s are in the Western cultural mindset today? Who would be the bad guy in Indiana Jones? Can you think of a substitute or would there be no true substitute?
What path would communism have taken without ww2?
Was it possible for Japan to hold on to any part of mainland China long term without ww2?