A Multidimensional Perspective of History

World War II occupies a special place in American history. Yet the American perspective on World War II differs from those of other countries. Becoming familiar with the Russian narrative, for example, will give us a more complete (and accurate) picture of the war. The Soviets lost 23 million soldiers and civilians, while the United States lost 418,000. The eastern front was the principal theater in the war, not the western front with which we are more familiar: (Normandy, Sicily and the Battle of the Bulge). Seventy-five percent of German forces fought in the east against the Soviets. The largest battle in history occurred at Kursk in 1943, where 1.5 million Germans and Soviets fought for over a month and a half. The eastern front was the main stage. The western front, as Fareed Zakaria suggests, was a "in many ways a sideshow."

One would be a fool to argue that the United States did not help turn the tide in World War II. But our narrative - our take on world history and events - when diluted with national pride, creates a distorted lens through which objective history becomes blurred. Our perspective of the war is biased. So, too, is Russia's. Somewhere in between exists the truth.

Ideally, of course, a historian would isolate an event like World War II and attempt to see it through the narratives of Indians, Germans, Chinese, Australians - all nations in fact, to achieve a more accurate and well-rounded perspective. Impractical? Perhaps. But historians should accept no substitutes for the truth - or at least as close as they can get.