quote:
His thesis was that the British turned a localized conflict in eastern Europe (the German invasion of Poland) into a world war. He blamed Churchill specifically even though Churchill wasn't in government when the Germans invaded Poland. He also seemed angry at Churchill and the British for not capitulating to Hitler before or during the Battle of Britain after France fell in 1940.

He's well-sourced. His thesis is similar to Pat Buchanan's in Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War.

Cooper is intensely smart, and naturally curious. He identifies, correctly, that WWII is the "foundational myth of the 20th century." That phrase isn't to suggest that it didn't happen, just that our understanding of that conflict is more directly influenced by the history that came after, rather than the history that came before. As a result, he looks more at the lead up to it, rather than what was published in the 60s.

People who hate Cooper's work do so because they likely haven't listened to him. As has been mentioned, his series on the Zionist movement doesn't even discuss WWII or get to the 1940s, and it's 7 episodes long.

He's got excellent work on a myriad of subjects. His episode Rough Extraction about the Matewan Massacre and the West Virginia coal wars of the late Teens/early 20s is phenomenal.

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Posted by SlayTime

Member since Jan 2025

3738 posts

Posted on 7/17/25 at 7:12 am to SECSolomonGrundy

quote:
Even to this day, people will act like the biggest assholes on the planet and use the excuse "you dont like me bc you are racist." That is an old bolshevik move.

I mean they literally wrote the book on it.

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Posted by RollTide1987

Augusta, GA

Member since Nov 2009

69694 posts

Posted on 7/17/25 at 7:35 am to RoyalAir

quote:
He's well-sourced. His thesis is similar to Pat Buchanan's in Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War.

It's a terrible thesis that is very poorly sourced. Hitler was always going to invade the Soviet Union no matter what the British or French did. Everything Hitler was doing in Germany from the time he took power in 1933 was building up to Operation Barbarossa and his final conflict with what he called "Jewish Bolshevism."

The war was always going to be global in scale despite what Cooper might want to think. Churchill also had nothing to do with the British declaration of war on Germany in September 1939 because he wasn't even in the British government at the time.

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Posted by RoyalAir

Detroit

Member since Dec 2012

7259 posts

Posted on 7/17/25 at 7:46 am to RollTide1987

quote:
It's a terrible thesis that is very poorly sourced.

Terrible theses are how the vast majority of pop history work. You disagree with Cooper/Buchanan/David Irving, as is your right. I respect that you have evidence for it.

We use shitty theses *all the time* when it comes to history-
Lincoln fought to free the slaves!
FDR Ended the Great Depression!
Oswald Acted alone!
Iraq/Afghanistan did 9/11!

Cooper's overall point is that the 20th Century world order rests on the shitty thesis that Hitler was The Worst Man In The History Of The World. But, because it's a foundational myth, it's met with great amounts of derision and shouts of blasphemy. We're 80+ years removed from the conflict - why can't we look at it with dispassionate eyes?

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Posted by RollTide1987

Augusta, GA

Member since Nov 2009

69694 posts

Posted on 7/17/25 at 8:33 am to RoyalAir

quote:
Cooper's overall point is that the 20th Century world order rests on the shitty thesis that Hitler was The Worst Man In The History Of The World.

Hitler doesn't have to be the worst man in the history of the world to acknowledge the fact that he was responsible for some of the worst atrocities in human history. Did other men have a higher body count than him? Sure. But the path Hitler took the world on ended up plunging six of the globe's seven continents into a cataclysm that ended up killing between 70-80 million people.

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