This blog isn’t about selling books – it’s about understanding the power of books.
Better than anyone, we think scholars understand books’ potential, and how books, as repositories for ideas, can change us, and our perspective on the world. In bookscombined.com we’re asking scholars to write about the books that have had a significant impact on their lives – the good, the bad, and the ugly.In their latest post, our author Lance deHaven Smith (Conspiracy Theory in America, 2013) has written about the biggest influences of his career: a shocking story his grandfather told him as a child, and a pioneering American conspiracy scholar, Charles Beard, who confirmed the controversial conspiracy theory behind America's entry into World War II.
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| Bullet holes remaining from the 1941 attack at Pearl Harbor. Photo taken by Howard Gribble. |
The Book that Outraged a Nation
By Lance deHaven-Smith
Originally posted on bookscombined.com
I began to study conspiracy theories after learning that many of them have turned out to be true. One of the most shocking is that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt knew when and where Japan was going to strike in the Pacific but intentionally failed to warn U.S. military commanders at Pearl Harbor.
In letting Japan surprise U.S. forces, Roosevelt’s motive was to bring the United States into World War II and foment social panic and outrage to fuel support for the war effort.
My grandfather told me about this when I was five years old. He had been wounded in World War II at Anzio during the U.S. invasion of Italy. He thought America’s top leaders cared little about the nation’s ordinary soldiers. In high school, I learned by happenstance that my grandfather’s story was not mere speculation. I came across a book by Charles Beard that explained and documented Roosevelt’s intrigue and deceit.
