World War Two: Heads of State, Politicians and Collaborators by Jack J. Kanski

Before the dawn of the internet (and yes, I am old enough to remember such a time) there were these quaint things called encyclopaedias. For the handful of youngsters who read my book reviews, these were “books or a set of books giving information on many subjects or on many aspects of one subject and typically arranged alphabetically”. This definition is courtesy of Google, which is how people get their information these days, the internet being the death knell for the encyclopaedia. But as we all know; the internet’s many strengths are also its weaknesses – too much information making it sometimes difficult to find exactly what you want and a related difficulty in being able to judge the veracity of what is served. I doubt the encyclopaedia will ever return to its pre-internet eminence, but in some limited senses, when the subject matter is focused and the facts unlikely to change, such a medium is welcome. Which brings me to the subject of this review.

This title, sub-headed “A Concise Outline” is effectively an encyclopaedia. The volume basically does what it says on the tin (or the jacket cover to be precise) and contains concise entries on all the major Second World War heads of state, politicians and collaborators – though by “collaborator”, the author means governments that collaborated with the Axis powers, such as Vichy France, rather than individuals like Lord Haw Haw. Each entry contains bullet points giving all the important and pertinent facts and it’s thus easy to skim read and find what you want.

This is a surprisingly useful text and for a subject matter such as a period of history which has been studied exhaustively, and thus the essential facts are unlikely to change, the encyclopaedia format works well. Even for an adept Googler, it is easier to skim through the pages of this tome to find biographical details of Winston Churchill or Heidrich Himmler than wade through Wikipedia. 

Apparently, this is one of a series of titles, the others dealing with figures from other periods of history. I haven’t seen any of the other titles, but certainly this is a worthwhile addition to the history buff’s library.

3 out of 5 stars