Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker is a monumental work of research about the causes and the avoidability of the Second World War--in its short-take composition, it's structurally reminiscent of Clive James' recent compendium Cultural Amnesia. Many of the heroic myths about Winston Churchill suffer badly at Baker's (and these selected historical records') hands, as this always-surprising author builds a case for pacifism as a plausible and possible alternative to what most historians claim was an inevitable war.