The Fear and the Freedom: How the Second World War Changed Us

Keith Lowe deserves a good deal of credit for putting together this interesting retrospective on the aftermath of World War Two, and how it changed everything.

He provides the reader with high-level discussions on a global scale; encompassing a great variety of matters military, political, economic, and social. They are all considered in due course.

Each one of his twenty-four chapters, introducing as they do yet another long term consequence of the war, begins with a segue, in the form of an individual human story, many of them quite gripping.

They will tell you what it was like to have been in Hiroshima on the dreadful day, or in New Mexico a couple of months earlier, when Oppenheimer exultantly quoted from the Bhagavad Gita, or about the unlikely survival story of an orphaned Jewish boy in the Ukraine who ended up escaping to Israel and becoming a novelist, or a Kenyan World War II veteran of the British army who later joined the Mau-Mau revolt against it, or a US bomber pilot who came to deeply regret his role in the destruction of German cities, and spent the rest of his life advocating for peace and the establishment of United World Governance.

All well and good. But

Mr. Lowe is perhaps broad minded to a fault. Regarding the United States during the Cold War, or Israel during its ongoing existential crisis with the Arabs, he slouches into intellectual shallowness and moral flabbiness. Is it really paranoia if you take a tough stand when you are facing overt threats of annihilation from the likes of Stalinist Russia or Fatah-Hamas-ISIS-Iran-et cetera? The contending sides are not equivalent. He does not make that point sufficiently clear.

Also, towards the end of the book, he lets slip his heretofore hidden agenda, the double-entendre of the title Fear and Freedom. He lets you know how awful the 52% of his fellow countrymen are, for having voted to clear out of the European Union. And how dreadful the Poles and Hungarians are for daring to try saving Western Civilization. He comes out full-bore on the side of the snobbish, nihilistic, elite-left mainstream, who want their fellow countrymen to go down without a fight, placidly accepting the overrunning of their countries, the bombings, the truck-crashings, the knifings, the shootings, and the rape gangs as the white survivors are forced into besieged enclaves, to serve out their pitiful centuries of Dhimmitude and eventual extinction.

Man up, England. Man up, Mr. Lowe. It is still not too late to take your country back.

Review of Keith Lowe The Fear and the Freedom

I did enjoy the book greatly until he goes into the Big Lie. Or, excellent history book turns into the propaganda.
The author writes in the introduction that Historians can be just as prejudice as anyone else and in the following pages I have tried to be honest about my own preconceived ideas and beliefs. He is honest in his own ideas but leaves out conflicting facts which make it less history and more propaganda.

First, lie Everyone was afraid of returning to the toxic era on the 1930s when the disasters of laissez-faire economics had been compounded by a decent into narrow nationalism. Anyone who know the economic history of the 1930s knows that laissez faire is the opposite of what happen. In the U.S. there were trade traffics, but with the Great Depression the government took almost complete control (through the National Industrial Recovery Act among other laws) of the economy. The author does not mention that this if what made the Great Depression great or not until after the death of Roosevelt with the end of the New Deal that the Great Depression ended. He also, does not define narrow nationalism.

Another lie is not to see the truth about the invasion of Europe and the West by immigrants legal and illegal. The author calls those who oppose the mass invasion racist or right wing. He does discuss jobs and culture in that that is why there is backlash to it. But it is more than just that. That there are elements of the non-western culture of the third world viewpoints in terms of human rights and rights of women that conflict greatly with Western values. Human rights, individual right, rights of women are western values. In that the culture of a nation is more than food or religion. It is a way of life, and way of thinking. The author does not discuss this. There was a sign posted that said, Islam is right about women which drove some people nuts. The author does not mention this, and it make it a smear to call a person a racist.

Another lie is his claim that there is demonization of immigrants In the U.S. Immigrants are loved by the Democrats, because they vote (even the illegal) for the Democrats, in high numbers and their loyalty is guaranteed. Also, big business loves all the cheap labor. Also, employing illegals means they never have to pay workers comp. There are winners with illegal and legal immigration. Those people love immigration. He also does not mention that people in the U.S. do believe in legal immigration at some level. It is the amount of legal immigration that people differ. When the author said that the U.S. is a nation of immigrants is not true. The U.S. is a nation of settlers and immigrants.

For Islam he says that to say the actions of a tiny minority have opened the door to the demonization of an entire religion is a lie. You have many, many attacks by Muslims, I can list them out, mass rapes, terrorist attacks, look at Sweden. When you look at Islam carefully (look at the life of Mohamad), the tenants of Islam support this. (Muslims must fight (jihad) to non-Muslims even if they dont want to (Koran.2;216) (Muslims must lie to us (non-Muslims) to strengthen and spread Islam (Koran.3.28:106) I could go on but you get the point. Not to see the truth about Islam especially when he bashes everyone else means he is not being honest. If you dont think that Islam teaches that they must wage war upon the non-believer read the politically incorrect guide to Islam by Robert Spencer.

Another lie, Talking about the invasion of Europe. Another lie, Economist, artist and gastronomist are quick to point out the enormous benefits of this revolution This is a lie. Give me one economist who says that importing thousands if not millions of low skill people is good for an economy. It is good for industry who wants cheap labor but its costs the low skill citizens dearly. I believe that it was Milton Friedman who said, you cant have the welfare state and uncontrolled immigration. From the Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration, Harvard labor economist George Borjas showed that immigrants, 1990 2010 reduced the average annual earnings of American workers by $1,396 in the short run. The less educated and least skilled were the most effected. To say that this revolution has enormous economic benefits is a lie. But one could say that it has enormous benefits for people who want cheap labor.

But he is leaving out the dirty word of the revolution as he calls it. Crime, you have mass rapes, (look at Germany) more murders in London that in New York and much other crime. It is called racist to say it, but it is true. In point in Europe and other places in the West, you have the rise of the No Go Zone and increase in rape. What does an invades do? Build a safe zone free from control and rape women.
I live in a non-white area near Washington DC. Where I live in the US is very directly affected by migration. There has been a large growth of the Hispanic population and the local supermarket has been taken over by Hispanics. English is not spoken or even used there. The food choices are largely are now Hispanic. The only way you know that the store is in the US is the money is in dollars. I feel the invasion. The author lives in North London, and I wonder how diverse the place where he lives is. There is a saying (in the US during the school busing of children) that the supporters of school busing are people who had their children in private schools. It would be interesting to see the neighborhood of the author to see if he enjoys the new invasion.

The reason people voted for Trump is that the two parties sold out the working people for the illegal and the globalist. They pay the costs of it in terms of lower wages, loss of culture, change of values, and safety. Dont say that they are racist.

Savage Continent was a well-written, engaging, scholarly masterpiece. If you are expecting the same from The Fear and the Freedom, you will be sorely disappointed. It’s disjointed, rambling, and short on data. Moreover, it is laced with the very socialist/globalist diatribe Western audiences encounter on a daily basis.

views > The Fear and the Freedom: How the Second World War Changed Us
The Fear and the Freedom by Keith Lowe
The Fear and the Freedom: How the Second World War Changed Us
by Keith Lowe

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RJ Newhouse’s review
Oct 19, 2019 edit

An excellent history of how the world, its countries and people, were forever changed by WW II and the lasting effect it has had on the world of today.Results have been both globalism and nationalism, fear of a common enemy leading to unity like the UN and EU, yet a desire for freedom from colonialism of British, French,US, Dutch empires. A book that needs to be read again.

An interesting angle on the impact WW2 had on our society, beyond just the immediate trauma of experiencing war at first hand. Some areas covered are a bit flat and there is a tendency to state the obvious, but overall a refreshing study of what this cataclysmic event had on individuals and how these common emotions translated to to so many more of those involved. A good read.

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