Michael Bess - Choices Under Fire: Moral Dimensions of World War II

Beautifully written. A volume that belongs on every World War II bookshelf.

America in World War II

Impressive. Bess's appreciation for moral context is as compelling as the book itself. Highly recommended.

CHOICE

[Bess] frequently engages in meticulous and subtle military and moral analysis. Well-informed and deeply impressive. Choices Under Fire is a book with great strengths.

American Heritage

Fascinating. Bess unhesitatingly tackles some of the moral dilemmas presented by the war. These, of course, are difficult [issues], and those who prefer pat answers will have little patience with these ruminations. Yet the strength of this book is that it forces us to acknowledge and confront them.

Booklist

Shakes many of the certainties which [the reader] may have entertained before opening it.

History News Network

Bess combines vivid descriptions of the historical events at hand with a careful canvassing of the ethical issues they raise. He is eager in nearly every instance to bring out the complexity of matters and the difficulty of arriving at simple moral conclusions.

Christian Century

Introduction: Evaluating the Second World War:
Celebration, Doubt, and Complexity

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

I owe a tremendous debt to the students and graduate teaching assistants in my annual course on World War II at Vanderbilt University: over the years, they have forced me again and again to rethink my positions on the major moral controversies of the war. In class discussions, in skeptical questions raised during lectures, in quietly intense debates walking back from class, these students have helped to shape this book: their curiosity, moral passion, and incisive critical questioning have enriched my life.

I completed this book during the first few months of a sabbatical leave from Vanderbilt in 20042005: my heartfelt thanks to the Vanderbilt University Research Scholar Grants Program, which helped to fund my year away from the classroom; and to the College of Arts and Science at Vanderbilt, for granting me the sabbatical. Without the sustained and generous support of these institutions, this project could never have been completed.

The reflections presented in this book have been in gestation for some twenty-five years, since the time when I wrote my first research paper on Leo Szilard in a graduate seminar with Martin Jay at the University of California, Berkeley. Among the many persons whose influence marks these pages, I would like to single out the following for particularly warm thanks (needless to say, they are not responsible for the conclusions I reach): Bev Asbury, John Barrow, Susanna Barrows, Alain Beltran, Barton Bernstein, Richard Blackett, Claude Bourdet, Tim Boyd, Gene Brucker, Roy Brunkenhoeffer, Bill Caferro, David Carlton, Mark Cioc, Simon Collier, John Compton, Paul Conkin, Beth Conklin, Katie Crawford, Dennis Daniels, Basil Davidson, Charles Delzell, Danilo Dolci, Marshall Eakin, Jean Bethke Elshtain, James Epstein, Sarah Farmer, Peter Felten, Devin Fergus, Gerald Figal, Carole Fink, Mona Frederick, Paul Freedman, Peter Fritzsche, Lawrence Frohman, Johan Galtung, Gordon Gee, Jay Geller, Joseph Goldstein, G. Allen Greb, Peter Haas, Mark Hampton, Joel Harrington, Helen Hawkins, Gabrielle Hecht, J. Len Helguera, Nelly Trocm Hewett, Nikolaus Hohmann, Lynn Hunt, John Hurst, Yoshikuni Igarashi, Martin Jay, Lionel Jensen, Ingrid Jordt, Mary Kaldor, Amy Kirschke, Steve Kotkin, Cathy Kudlick, Jane Landers, Thomas Laqueur, Thomas Lindsay, Amanda and Billy Livsey, Kaspar Locher, Peter Lorge, Martin Malia, Deanna Matheuszik, Richard McCarty, Walter McDougall, Sam McSeveney, Douglas Mitchell, Michael Nagler, Michael Norman, Bill Partridge, Tom Patten, Bill Peck, Elisabeth Perry, Lewis Perry, Pierre Pflimlin, Allison Pingree, Alain Poher, Matthew Ramsey, David Reeve, Ruth Rogaski, Michael Rose, John Saville, Franz Schurmann, Tom Schwartz, Vanessa Schwartz, Jonathon Scruggs, Ed Segel, Becky and Michael Sharpe, George Sheer, Bob Sherwood, James Skelly, Helmut Smith, Rob Spinney, Dorothy Thompson, E. P. Thompson, Arleen Tuchman, Owen Ulph, Dan Usner, Meredith Veldman, Justin Vitiello, W. Warren Wagar, Kenneth Waltz, Frank Wcislo, Meike Werner, Lawrence Wittner, David Wood, Donald Worster, David Yarian, Herbert York, Reggie Zelnik, and Nick Zeppos.

Working with Ash Green, my editor at Knopf, has been a writer's dream: from the rewording of individual phrases and sentences, to the conceptual integrity of chapters, to the structure of the book as a whole, Ash brought to bear the kind of clear eye and literary flair that make all the difference. I felt as though the spirit of E. B. White, kindly but unsparing, were hovering over me: It's no cinch to write standard English. Ash's editing made this a much better book than it was. Many thanks also to all the others at Knopf who helped bring this book into existence: Sara Sherbill, Luba Ostashevsky, Kristen Bearse, Maria Massey, and Carol Carson.

I owe a special debt to my colleagues John Compton, Gerald Figal, Yoshi Igarashi, Helmut Smith, Frank Wcislo, and David Wood; and to my wife, Kimberly, for their perceptive and constructively critical comments on earlier drafts of some of the chapters that follow. Many thanks to the librarians at Vanderbilt's Central Library for all their assistance: Peter Brush, David Anderson, LaRentina Gray, Marilyn Pilley, Janet Thomason, and Jim Toplon. And thanks as well to the staff in Vanderbilt's History Department: Brenda Hummel, Vicki Swinehart, Lauren Henderson, Heidi Welch, and Jane Anderson.

My literary agent, Mildred Marmur, has sustained my writing through more than two decades with extraordinary patience and good cheer; her expertise, encouragement, and insight, as well as her insider's knowledge of the publishing world, have been truly invaluable. My gratitude to my graduate school mentors, Susanna Barrows and Martin Jay, only grows deeper as the decades go by. Marshall Eakin has been a source of inspiration to me through the years, as a teacher, as a scholar, as a human being. The teachings of Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, and Stephen Levine enrich my life every day.