Professor Richard Overy - Writing the History of the Second World War: Anything More to Say? 

Studied under Overy at Exeter, in his yearlong class called The Dictators, Hitler and Stalin, where he told me he enjoyed my writing particularly in its aesthetic value, but took exception to my sources, which were extremely outdated. The key to understanding the period was essentially newness. Cutting edge scholarship. This was the spring of 2005, and he delivered this dressing down in his office, which was covered in garish pastels, shag carpet, and basically everything short of a framed photo of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Needless to say I loved the man and always will; he's the living embodiment of a brilliant anachronism.

I've got a lot of time for Professor Overy. I don't agree with him on everything, but his scholarship is of the highest standard and he has a knack for explaining complex issues in a simple and engaging fashion. A truly great historian.

Richard Overy is always popping up in WW2 documentaries nice to hear him speaking here his knowledge of WW2 is one of the most definitive .

To get to the meat of the matter, skip to 5:00. Five minutes of introductions and accolades are too much for mere mortals.

Overy's 'War: A History in 100 Battles' is a great read.

I especially like Overy's work on the Battle of Britain and his destroying the myths around that event.

is it possible to acquire a REPRODUCTION of Prof OVERY's lecture?

I just read his boo k. Very fascinating.

Excellent as always Prof Overy. Silly name, but his research tends to set the focus for historiographical discussion for the next decade or so. Tooze clearly relies very heavily on Overy's economic history, for example

Interesting that Spain, Franco and the civil Spanish war are not mentioned. The fear in all the European communities was that similar civil stresses could occur in their countries. The fact that fascism came in vogue was not because it was liked but because of fear of class conflict. Strange that he doesn't see that as a factor. Also strange that he talks about liberation of the proletariat but really as in the Soviet Union it was simply the replacement of one power with another and there was no liberation but instead more restriction and incarceration than ever before.

I was convinced that he would say financing and aiding Franco's uprising in Spain was the Reich's "first move" like Manchuria was for Japan, but alas. Valuable reframing of the chronology of ww2 and clearly very erudite, though I'm a little frustrated by how vaguely he uses imperialism in a few bits of the lecture

Comment comments etc

I'm from eastern Europe and was unimpressed by the lecture, nothing was mentioned of the Stalin -Hitler pact and the fact that the Russians were the same sort of empire as the Axis powers.

20:40, Avery's real intention of his lecture.

This old man is so funny bruh. I be just watching his commentary’s on WWII & I just start dying out laughter. He’s so like non-chalant about history I love it. History repeats itself. So what. Either evolve or die.

Truly interesting exposition, and very logical explication of WWII, except that Professor Overy has not considered the British mandate and the intricate, greatly varied Christian theologies underpinning several great powers involved in the period all the way from WWI to WWII, as the main driving force of the Great War and its part two, the Second World War. And also Professor Overy has not considered how Protestant Germany was not made an ally of the Allied camp and how it became a turncoat at that point under Hitler, but they said it was not Austria that caused it. One issue was that many modern theology books tell us Germany was a Protestant, but in fact it was only half so by the advent of the Great War - historical sources tend to say "Germany" back then was still 300 or so princedoms, some Palatinate and some Hohenzollern. And internally, they painstakingly battled it out every so often - a few times since Martin Luther, often having to face the Austrias' opposition. The problem besetting the whole period from WWI to WWII, simply put, was that the Catholics, as the original supporter of replacement theology, did not support Herzl's vision of Zionism, but the Zionists insisted they forge ahead to create their long-expected state in Palestine, eventually even successfully bringing the British and their vast empire on their side. This was the main cause of the outbreak, the second conflict being the rise of communism in Germany itself, which caused the Germans to fear for the future statuses of their church and private property. All these came to a head. But of course, the Americans are worthy of a mention, too. The rumblings caused by Fat Man and Fat Boy in the east, although not actually heard and felt by the Germans directly, did cause Hitler's forces to surrender quickly and retreat in no time probably due to the effects of the newswires and radio broadcasting, still a novel technologies in those days, that carried the rumblings the horrors far and wide. But given more than 60 years have passed since WWII and already, with decolonisation seemingly completed by the European powers, up till now there is still one part of the world heavily colonised, but the academic world has remained hush hush and not really dared make mention of it as such. But I think the reason is more to do with the fact that they don't want to study that area as such (as it may not yet be the right time for that to do so, or for whatever reasons), and they don't care to bend it into the western mould and have allowed its own way of doing things as distinct from the western way. So, that area is currently heavily involved in production of western goods at the moment, is not thought of (at least not yet) as necessarily having to copy the west in other ways. Many have written copiously about how the political changes are optimistic and imminent, which has so far never happened. However, there is one exception in that country: there is a part in it there which has been placed under its mandate for 50 years (a mandate of preserving its British character and capitalism), but that part still legally belongs to Britain, and Britain can turn up any time after the 50 years have passed. I guess so with much educated guess.

The history of the Second World War was one tragedy after another - so today we can only describe ww2 history but we will never understand - why? The Answer of this Question give us today history: We have to learn from history how we can make our world today better.

So, little known fun fact. If you - a partner in a stable, long term relationship - for some related reason happened to be having a baby, and invited Professor Overy and his wife into the delivery room at the time of conception, you could exclaim “oh, look it’s the Overies” and it would be an absolute smash hit.

Didn't "say"much of anything...

WW2...90% EASTEERN FRONT

Lord this man is boring. Back to Max Hastings I go...

MUH RACISM