Sam Leith Sam Leith

How Hitler’s dreams came true in 1946

A review of 1946: The Making of the Modern World, by Victor Sebestyen. There aren’t many laughs, and such as there are tend to be dark

Two small children dying together in the gutter in the Chinese famine of 1946. [Bridgeman Images] 
issue 11 October 2014

I should begin this review, in the spirit of full disclosure, by admitting that I know the author very slightly. Something close to 14 years ago, we were on the same press freebie: a slap-up lunch in Paris courtesy of — was it? — LBC radio. Who knows? The ignominious occasion of our acquaintance isn’t the reason I mention it: rather that, somewhere on the Eurostar under the Channel, he and I fell into a conversation about the European Union.

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