“Bell’s thesis is that the origins of World War II are found in World War I, and the Second World War represented the second attempt for the dominance of Europe, the first having been almost achieved in 1914-18. In order to arrive at this conclusion, Bell investigates two comprehensive sets of explanations for the war, basically leading to either the view that it was inevitable or that it was unnecessary. The notion of a planned, premeditated war (war by blueprint, even) stands against that of war by accident or improvisation (47). Many mistakes have been made, one consisting of the view the conflict began in 1936 with the Spanish Civil War; another mistake is that World War II was the final phase of a Thirty Years War. The greatest error has been to end analyses of origins in September, 1939. World War II resulted from a whole group of circumstances, created by ideology, along with forces, that was perfectly set in the 1930s for the outbreak of war.”