“History shows us,” the British historian Paul Johnson observed in his landmark book Modern Times, “the truly amazing extent to which intelligent, well-informed and resolute men, in the pursuit of economy or in an altruistic passion for disarmament, will delude themselves about realities.” Johnson was writing about appeasement, the Western policy of accommodating dictators like Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini to avoid war. And despite the efforts of a new revisionist film, Johnson’s observation still holds true.
(CAMERA’s Feb. 2, 2022 National Interest Op-Ed can be found here)