LAURENCE REES: And why should anybody bother to study history in general and this period in particular?

ANDREW ROBERTS: I think it’s impossible to understand the modern world  unless you know what  happened between 1939 and 1945. So many of the things that happened to us, the configurations of nation states, their hopes and fears, do still go back to the vestigial memories of that period. I think if anything when we look at the credit crunch today our knowledge and our certainty that recession can lead to depression that can lead to fascism, which leads to war, will keep our minds very solidly on the importance of ensuring that that Via Dolorosa is not followed.