I am currently reading Richard Overy and Andrew Wheatcroft's The Road to War: The Origins of World War II. The book serves as an accompaniment to a BBC television series of the same name from the late 1980s. Each chapter covers one of the major powers and explains how they came to take part in the war.
Of all the figures in the book, the one that I learned the most about was Neville Chamberlain. The authors portray the British Prime Minister not as a mealy-mouthed appeaser desperate to avoid antagonizing Hitler, but as a pretty crafty leader who managed to manoeuvre Hitler into war at a time when the Germans did not consider themselves to be fully ready.
I also learned that at least one Japanese family celebrated their country's alliance with the German people by making a snowman of the German leader, Hitler.
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