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A Companion to World War II brings together a series of fresh academic perspectives on World War II, exploring the many cultural, social, and political contexts of the war. Essay topics range from American anti-Semitism to the experiences of French-African soldiers, providing nearly 60 new contributions to the genre arranged across two comprehensive volumes.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
PART I Roots of War
CHAPTER ONE How a Second World War Happened
CHAPTER TWO The Versailles Peace Settlement and the Collective Security System
CHAPTER THREE The Great Depression
CHAPTER FOUR Colonialism in Asia
CHAPTER FIVE Visionaries of Expansion
CHAPTER SIX Soviet Planning for War, 1928–June 1941
PART II Fighting the War
CHAPTER SEVEN Japanese Early Attack
CHAPTER EIGHT War and Empire: The Transformation of Southern Asia
CHAPTER NINE CBI: A Historiographical Review
CHAPTER TEN The German Assault, 1939–1941
CHAPTER ELEVEN Militaries Compared: Wehrmacht and Red Army, 1941–1945
CHAPTER TWELVE The Bombers: The Strategic Bombing of Germany and Japan
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Scandinavian Campaigns
CHAPTER FOURTEEN The Naval War in the Mediterranean
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Ocean War
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Maritime War: Combat, Management, and Memory
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Middle East and World War II
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN The Western Front, 1944–1945
CHAPTER NINETEEN Battle Fronts and Home Fronts: The War in the East from Stalingrad to Berlin
CHAPTER TWENTY German Defeat
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Southwest Pacific
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO The Military Occupations of World War II: A Historiography
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Ending the Pacific War: The New History
PART III Multinational and Transnational Zones of Combat: Strategy
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Axis Coalition Building
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Strategies, Commands, and Tactics, 1939–1941
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX British and American Strategic Planning
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Wartime Conferences
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT The US War Against Japan: A Transnational Perspective
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE World War II and Communication Technologies
CHAPTER THIRTY Of Spies and Stratagems
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE French African Soldiers in World War II
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO Scientists and Nuclear Weapons in World War II: The Background, the Experience, and the Sometimes Contested Meanings and Analyses
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE Civilians in the Combat Zone: Anglo-American Strategic Bombing
PART IV Multinational and Transnational Zones of Combat: Society
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR European Societies in Wartime
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE Life in Plato’s Cave: Neutral Europe in World War II
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX Resistance in Eastern Europe
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN Boomerang Resistance: German Émigrés in the US Army during World War II
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT Beyond Impact: Toward a New Historiography of Africa and World War II
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE Race, Genocide, and Holocaust
CHAPTER FORTY Holocaust and Genocide Today
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE Environmental Dimensions of World War II
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO The Women of World War II
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE Transnational Civil Rights during World War II
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR Global Culture and World War II
PART V Homelands
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE The Balkans in the Origins of World War II
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX Poland’s Military in World War II
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN Resistance inside Nazi Germany
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT Occupied France: The Vichy Regime, Collaboration, and Resistance
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE The Italian Campaign
CHAPTER FIFTY US Foreign Policy, the Grand Alliance, and the Struggle for Indian Independence during the Pacific War
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE “P” Was for Plenty
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO Generating American Combat Power in World War II
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE American Anti-Semitism during World War II
PART VI Aftermath and Consequences
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR War Crimes in Europe
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE Anglo-American Postwar Planning
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX The Cultural Legacy of World War II in Germany
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN World War II in Historical Memory
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT The Place of World War II in Global History
Index
This series provides sophisticated and authoritative overviews of the scholarship that has shaped our current understanding of the past. Defined by theme, period and/or region, each volume comprises between twenty-five and forty concise essays written by individual scholars within their area of specialization. The aim of each contribution is to synthesize the current state of scholarship from a variety of historical perspectives and to provide a statement on where the field is heading. The essays are written in a clear, provocative, and lively manner, designed for an international audience of scholars, students, and general readers.
A Companion to Roman BritainEdited by Malcolm Todd
A Companion to Britain in the Later Middle AgesEdited by S. H. Rigby
A Companion to Tudor BritainEdited by Robert Tittler and Norman Jones
A Companion to Stuart BritainEdited by Barry Coward
A Companion to Eighteenth-Century BritainEdited by H. T. Dickinson
A Companion to Nineteenth-Century BritainEdited by Chris Williams
A Companion to Early Twentieth-Century BritainEdited by Chris Wrigley
A Companion to Contemporary BritainEdited by Paul Addison and Harriet Jones
A Companion to the Early Middle Ages: Britain and Ireland c.500-c.1100Edited by Pauline Stafford
A Companion to Europe 1900–1945Edited by Gordon Martel
A Companion to Eighteenth-Century EuropeEdited by Peter H. Wilson
A Companion to Nineteenth-Century EuropeEdited by Stefan Berger
A Companion to the Worlds of the RenaissanceEdited by Guido Ruggiero
A Companion to the Reformation WorldEdited by R. Po-chia Hsia
A Companion to Europe Since 1945Edited by Klaus Larres
A Companion to the Medieval WorldEdited by Carol Lansing and Edward D. English
A Companion to the American RevolutionEdited by Jack P. Greene and J. R. Pole
A Companion to 19th-Century AmericaEdited by William L. Barney
A Companion to the American SouthEdited by John B. Boles
A Companion to American Indian HistoryEdited by Philip J. Deloria and Neal Salisbury
A Companion to American Women’s HistoryEdited by Nancy A. Hewitt
A Companion to Post-1945 AmericaEdited by Jean-Christophe Agnew and Roy Rosenzweig
A Companion to the Vietnam WarEdited by Marilyn B. Young and Robert Buzzanco
A Companion to Colonial AmericaEdited by Daniel Vickers
A Companion to American Foreign RelationsEdited by Robert D. Schulzinger
A Companion to 20th-Century AmericaEdited by Stephen J. Whitfield
A Companion to the American WestEdited by William Deverell
A Companion to the Civil War and ReconstructionEdited by Lacy K. Ford
A Companion to American TechnologyEdited by Carroll Pursell
A Companion to African-American HistoryEdited by Alton Hornsby, Jr.
A Companion to American ImmigrationEdited by Reed Ueda
A Companion to American Cultural HistoryEdited by Karen Halttunen
A Companion to California HistoryEdited by William Deverell and David Igler
A Companion to American Military HistoryEdited by James Bradford
A Companion to Los AngelesEdited by William Deverell and Greg Hise
A Companion to American Environmental HistoryEdited by Douglas Cazaux Sackman
A Companion to Benjamin FranklinEdited by David Waldstreicher
A Companion to Western Historical ThoughtEdited by Lloyd Kramer and Sarah Maza
A Companion to Gender HistoryEdited by Teresa A. Meade and Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks
A Companion to the History of the Middle EastEdited by Youssef M. Choueiri
A Companion to Japanese HistoryEdited by William M. Tsutsui
A Companion to International History 1900–2001Edited by Gordon Martel
A Companion to Latin American HistoryEdited by Thomas Holloway
A Companion to Russian HistoryEdited by Abbott Gleason
A Companion to World War IEdited by John Horne
A Companion to Mexican History and CultureEdited by William H. Beezley
A Companion to World HistoryEdited by Douglas Northrop
A Companion to Global Environmental HistoryEdited by J. R. McNeill and Erin Stewart Mauldin
A Companion to World War IIEdited by Thomas W. Zeiler, with Daniel M. DuBois
A Companion to Franklin D. RooseveltEdited by William Pederson
A Companion to Richard M. NixonEdited by Melvin Small
A Companion to Theodore RooseveltEdited by Serge Ricard
A Companion to Thomas JeffersonEdited by Francis D. Cogliano
A Companion to Lyndon B. JohnsonEdited by Mitchell Lerner
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A companion to World War II / edited by Thomas W. Zeiler, with Daniel M. DuBois. p. cm. – (Wiley-Blackwell companions to world history) Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4051-9681-9 (2 v. set : alk. paper) 1. World War, 1939–1945. I. Zeiler, Thomas W. II. DuBois, Daniel M., 1984– III. Title: Companion to World War Two. D743.C557 2012 940.53–dc23
2012017188
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover images: (Volume I) Detail of monument to the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, photo © Laurent Zambies / iStockphoto; (Volume II) German military cemetery, La Cambe, France, photo © Hemis / Corbis.Cover design: Richard Boxhall Design Associates.
Elena Agarossi (or Aga-Rossi) has taught contemporary history at the University of L’Aquila, Italy and at the Scuola Superiore della Pubblica Amministrazione in Rome . Her research interests focus on the history of political parties, Italian foreign politics, World War II, and cold war. She conducted extensive research in the UK, as well as in the United States, at Harvard, Stanford, and Washington as fellow at the W. Wilson International Center for Scholars. She is the author of Una guerra a parte, I militari italiani nei Balcani, 1940–1945 (with M. T. Giusti) published in 2011.Yehuda Bauer is a professor (emeritus) of Holocaust Studies of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and the academic advisor to Yad Vashem. He is a member of the Israeli Academy of Science, and serves as the active honorary chairman of the International Task Force for Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research. His latest books (in English) are Jews For Sale? (Yale University Press, 1994), Rethinking the Holocaust (Yale University Press, 2001), and The Death of the Shtetl (Yale University Press, 2009).M. Todd Bennett is an assistant professor of history at East Carolina University. His first book, One World, Big Screen – about Hollywood’s portrayal of internationalism during World War II – is forthcoming from the University of North Carolina Press. His work has appeared in the Journal of American History and Diplomatic History. He served with the Office of the Historian, US Department of State, and taught at The George Washington University.Barton J. Bernstein is a professor of history at Stanford University, and one of the leading scholars on the subject of the atomic bomb and World War II. Dr. Bernstein’s research focuses on the Truman administration, science and technology policy, nuclear history, US foreign policy, and international crises.Jochen Böhler is a research associate at the Imre Kertész Kolleg for contemporary eastern European history at the University of Jena, Germany. He was working at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw from 2000 until 2010. His books Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg: die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939 (Fischer, 2006), Einsatzgruppen in Polen: Darstellungen un Dokumentation with Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Jürgen Matthäus (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2008) and Der Überfall: Deutschlands Krieg gegen Polen (Eichborn, 2009) have triggered an ongoing debate on the early stage (1939–1941) of the War of Annihilation.R. J. B. Bosworth is a senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, and emeritus professor of history at the University of Western Australia. His latest book is Whispering city: Rome and its histories (Yale University Press, 2011).Judith A. Byfield is an associate professor in the Department of History at Cornell University. The primary focus of her scholarship has been women’s social and economic history in Nigeria. Her first book, The Bluest Hands: A Social and Economic History of Women Indigo Dyers in Western Nigeria, 1890–1940 (Heinemann: African Social History Series, 2002), examined the indigo dyeing industry in Abeokuta, a Yoruba town in western Nigeria.Dr. D’Ann Campbell is a professor of history at Culver-Stockton College. Her publications include her book, Women at War with America: Private Lives in a Patriotic Era (Harvard University Press, 1984), as well as three dozen articles on women in the military in the twentieth century, especially World War II.Earl J. Catagnus, Jr. is a lecturer of history at Montgomery County Community College and is finishing his doctorate in military history at Temple University.Robert M. Citino is one of America’s most prolific military historians. He is the author of nine books, including The German Way of War (2005), Death of the Wehrmacht (2007), and The Wehrmacht Retreats (2012). His book Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm (2004) was the winner of both the American Historical Association’s Paul M. Birdsall Prize for military and strategic history and the Society for Military History’s Distinguished Book Award.Isabelle Davion is teaching contemporary history of German-speaking countries and east-central Europe at the University Paris-Sorbonne. She is also a member of the executive committee joint research group IRICE (Identities, International Relations, and Civilizations in Europe), and of the History office of the French Ministry of Defense. She has been giving conferences at Sciences-Po Paris from 2005 until 2010. Her book Mon voisin, cet ennemi: la politique desécuritéfrançaiseface aux relations polono-tchécoslovaques entre 1919 et 1939 (Peter Lang, 2009) was awarded by the Institut de France.Simon Davis (PhD, Exeter, 1994) is a professor of history at the City University of New York’s Bronx Community College and CUNY Graduate Center. Most recently, he is the author of Contested Space: Anglo-American Relations in the Persian Gulf, 1941–1947. His current project is From Development and Welfare to Martial Law: Britain and Arab Palestine, 1929–1939.Frédéric Dessberg, associate and doctor in history, senior lecturer at Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne University, on secondment at Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan Military Academy. He is heading the European Defense and Security Department at the Centre of Research of Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan, member of UMR IRICE (Paris I–Paris IV). He is interested in the French policy in central and Eastern Europe between the two World Wars, he has recently published Le Triangle impossible: Les relations franco-soviétiques et le facteur polonais dans les questions de sécurité en Europe, 1924–1935 (Peter Lang, 2009) and Les Horizons lointains de la politique extérieure française (Peter Lang, 2011).Richard L. DiNardo is the professor for national security affairs at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College at Quantico, Virginia. He is the author or editor of six books. His most recent book is Breakthrough: The Gorlice-Tarnow Campaign, 1915 (ABC-CLIO, 2010). It also won honorable mention in the Western Front Association’s Tomlinson Book Prize for 2010.Mark Edele is an associate professor in history at the University of Western Australia. He received much of his education in Germany (MA, University of Tübingen) and earned an MA and PhD from the University of Chicago. He is the author of Soviet Veterans of the Second World War: A Popular Movement in an Authoritarian Society (Oxford University Press, 2008) and Stalinist Society (Oxford University Press, 2011).Brian P. Farrell teaches military history at the National University of Singapore, where he has been working since 1993. His research interests include the military history of the British Empire, imperialism and military history in Asia, coalition warfare, and special forces. Major publications include The Basis and Making of British Grand Strategy 1940–1943: Was There a Plan? (1998) and The Defence and Fall of Singapore 1940–1942 (2005).Richard B. Frank published his first book, Guadalcanal, in 1990. His second work, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire, appeared in 1999 and has been called one of the six best books in English on World War II. Both Random House books won awards and became main selections of the History Book Club. In 2006, he completed MacArthur as part of the Palgrave Great Generals series. In addition to his numerous appearances on television and radio, he was also a consultant for the epic HBO miniseries, The Pacific. He is currently working on a narrative history trilogy on the Asian-Pacific War.Christopher R. Gabel, PhD, is a professor of military history at the US Army Command and General Staff College. His publications include The US Army GHQ Maneuvers of 1941; Seek, Strike, and Destroy: US Army Tank Destroyer Doctrine in World War II; and Staff Ride Handbook for the Vicksburg Campaign.Marc Gallicchio, Villanova University, was editor for The Unpredictability of the Past: Memories of the Asia-Pacific War in US–East Asian Relations (2007) and author of The Scramble for Asia: US Military Power in the Aftermath of the Pacific War (2008) as well as The African American Encounter with Japan and China: Black Internationalism in Asia, 1895–1945 (2000) which won the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Robert H. Ferrell prize. (Bats right, throws right.)Sarah Ellen Graham has served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Studies/Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California, lecturer in international relations at the University of Southern California, and lecturer in modern history at the University of Western Sydney. She is a research fellow of the USC Center for Public Diplomacy for 2011–2013 and is a past winner of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Bernath Article Prize.Dr. Neil Gregor is a professor of history at the University of Southampton. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including Haunted city: Nuremberg and the Nazi past (Yale University Press, 2008).Jacob Darwin Hamblin is an associate professor of history at Oregon State University. He specializes in the international dimensions of science, technology, and the environment during the cold war era. His books include Oceanographers and the Cold War (Washington, 2005) and Poison in the Well: Radioactive Waste in the Oceans at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age (Rutgers, 2008).Travis J. Hardy is a lecturer of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville where he received his doctorate in American diplomatic and military history in 2010 and specializes in examining the role of the US in the world. His article, “Race as an Aspect of the US–Australian Alliance in World War II,” was recently accepted for publication in the journal Diplomatic History.Gary R. Hess is an emeritus distinguished research professor at Bowling Green State University. His research has concentrated on American relations with South and Southeast Asia, leading to America Encounters India, 1941–1947; The United States’ Emergence as a Southeast Asia Power, 1940–1950; and Vietnam and the United States: Origins and Legacy of War. His most recent books include the second edition of Presidential Decisions for War; Vietnam: Explaining America’s Lost War; and the third edition of The United States at War, 1941–45.Alexander Hill is an associate professor in military history at the University of Calgary, Canada, and author of The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, 1941–1945: A Documentary Reader (Routledge, 2009) and The War Behind the Eastern Front: The Soviet Partisan Movement in North-West Russia, 1941–1944 (Frank Cass, 2005).Dr. Talbot C. Imlay is a professor of history at the Université Laval. He is the author of many books and articles, including Facing the Second World War: Strategy, Politics, and Economics in Britain and France (Oxford, 2003).Dr. Akira Iriye is Charles Warren Professor of American History in 1991. He has written widely on American diplomatic history and Japanese–American relations. Among those works are Pacific Estrangement: Japanese and American Expansion, 1897–1911 (1972); Power and Culture: The Japanese-American War, 1941–1945 (1981); Fifty Years of Japanese-American Relations (in Japanese, 1991); China and Japan in the Global Setting (1992); The Globalizing of America (1993); and Cultural Internationalism and World Order (1997).Ashley Jackson is a professor of imperial and military history at King’s College London and a visiting fellow at Kellogg College Oxford. He is the author of numerous books and articles on Britain’s imperial and military history.Julian Jackson is a professor of modern French history at Queen Mary, University of London. He has written extensively on twentieth century France. His publications include France: the Dark Years (2001) and The Fall of France (2003). He is currently working on a new biography of de Gaulle.Patricia Kollander is a professor of history at Florida Atlantic University. Her publications include Frederick III: Germany’s Liberal Emperor (Greenwood Press, 1995) and “I Must be a Part of this War”: A German-American’s Fight against Hitler and Nazism (Fordham University Press, 2005). She is currently examining the experiences of German-born émigrés who fought in the US army during World War II.Dr. Stephan Lehnstaedt is a researcher at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw. He is the author of Okkupation im Osten: Besatzeralltag in Warschau und Minsk 1939–1944 (Oldenbourg-Verlag, 2010).Sean L. Malloy is an associate professor of history and member of the founding faculty at the University of California, Merced. He is the author of Atomic Tragedy: Henry L. Stimson and the Decision to Use the Bomb Against Japan (Cornell University Press, 2008) as well as articles dealing with nuclear targeting in World War II and the radiation effects of the atomic bomb.Professor Frank McDonough was educated at Balliol College, Oxford. He holds a chair in international history at Liverpool John Moores University. He is the author of many books and articles. His most recent titles are Sophie Scholl (2009) which was one of the London Evening Standard “Books of the Year” and The Origins of the Second World War: An International Perspective (2011), a Sunday Telegraph “Book of the Year.”Edward G. Miller is a defense consultant and retired US Army logistics officer. He was a designated army historian and appeared on the Fox News Channel. His books cover the battle of the Hurtgen Forest and US Army operations in the European theater. He has led battle staff rides for US Army officers and NCOs in Europe since 1986.William H. Miller is an independent scholar in the areas of twentieth century war, mobilization, and technology. His current project explores continuities between World War II industrial mobilization and contemporary times.John E. Moser is an associate professor of history at Ashland University, where he teaches courses on US, European, and East Asian history. He is author of three books: Twisting the Lion’s Tail: American Anglophobia between the World Wars (New York University Press, 1999); Presidents from Hoover through Truman, 1929–1953 (Greenwood Press, 2002); and Right Turn: John T. Flynn and the Transformation of American Liberalism (New York University Press, 2005).Stephen H. Norwood (PhD, Columbia University) is a professor of history at the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of four books, most recently The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower: Complicity and Conflict on American Campuses (Cambridge University Press), finalist for the National Jewish Book Award for Holocaust Studies. He is the editor (with Eunice Pollack) of the prize-winning Encyclopedia of American Jewish History.Christopher D. O’Sullivan (PhD, MA, University of London; BA, University College Berkeley) teaches history and international studies at the University of San Francisco, where he is the recipient of their 2011 Distinguished Teaching Award. He is the author of FDR and the End of Empire: The Origins of American Power in the Middle East (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2012), Colin Powell: A Political Biography (2010), Sumner Welles: Postwar Planning, and the Quest for a New World Order (2008), and The United Nations: A Concise History (2005).Michael Alfred Peszke is a professor emeritus of the University of Connecticut Health Center, a distinguished life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a member emeritus of the American College of Psychiatrists. His avocation is Polish World War II military history and he has published a number of books and many papers on the subject.John Prados is the author of twenty-one books on diplomatic, military, or intelligence history and many hundreds of papers, articles, and web postings on these topics as well as government secrecy, conflict simulation, and board gaming. His works on World War II include Normandy Crucible, the award-winning Combined Fleet Decoded, and the forthcoming Islands of Destiny. Prados is a senior fellow and project director with the National Security Archive in Washington, DC and holds a PhD in political science (international relations) from Columbia University.Mark Roehrs received his PhD in history from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 1998. In addition, he also holds a B.S. in education (1987) from Concordia Teacher’s College in Seward, NE and a MA in history (1989) from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. He has been teaching full time since 1997. Roehrs was an instructor in the University of Wisconsin Colleges system and taught at the Marathon County and Baraboo/Sauk County campuses for three years. For the past ten years he has been a professor at Lincoln Land Community College in Springfield, IL. Roehrs has also coauthored a text on the Pacific War.Dr. Christoph J. M. Safferling is a professor of criminal law, international criminal law, and international law at the Institute for Criminal Science at the Philipps-University Marburg. He is the author of numerous books and articles on war crimes and international criminal law, including Towards an International Criminal Procedure (Oxford University Press 2001, in paperback 2003).Professor Nicholas Evan Sarantakes is an associate professor of strategy at the US Naval War College. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Southern California. He also earned a MA degree in history from the University of Kentucky. Before that he earned a BA in history from the University of Texas. He is the author of Keystone: The American Occupation of Okinawa and US–Japanese Relations (2000), Seven Stars: The Okinawa Battle Diaries of Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. and Joseph Stilwell (2004), and Allies Against the Rising Sun: The United States, the British Nations, and the Defeat of Imperial Japan (2009), and a forthcoming book about the making of the film Patton. He has published a number of award-winning articles that appeared in journals such as Diplomatic History, English Historical Review, The Journal of Military History, and Joint Forces Quarterly. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and has previously taught at Texas A&M University – Commerce, the Air War College, the University of Southern Mississippi, and the US Army Command and General Staff College.Dr. Raffael Scheck is a professor of history at Colby College. He has published four books and many articles on German history at the time of the World Wars. His third book, Hitler’s African Victims (Cambridge University Press, 2006, in paperback 2008), has been translated into French (2007) and German (2009).James Schwoch is the senior associate dean for the School of Communication at Northwestern University in Qatar, and a professor at Northwestern University. His research explores the nexus of global media, media history, international studies, and global security.Kenneth Slepyan (PhD, University of Michigan) is a professor of modern European history at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. He is the author of several publications on Soviet resistance during World War II, including Stalin’s Guerrillas: Soviet Partisans in World War II (University Press of Kansas, 2006).Kevin Smith is an associate professor of history and department chair at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. He is author of Conflict over Convoys: Anglo-American Logistics Diplomacy in the Second World War (1996) and several articles, most notably “Reassessing Roosevelt’s View of Chamberlain after Munich: Ideological Affinity in the Geoffrey Thompson–Claude Bowers Correspondence,” in Diplomatic History. He is also senior historical consultant for Echoes of War: Stories from the Big Red One (2007).Marietta Stankova studied modern European history at the universities of Sofia, Budapest, and Oxford. She obtained her PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she has also taught extensively. She has written widely on Bulgaria, the cold war, and communism and is an experienced researcher in the archives of Britain, Bulgaria, and Russia.Mark A. Stoler is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Vermont, where he taught from 1970 to 2007. He is the author of Allies in War: Britain and America against the Axis Powers, 1940–1945 (Hodder-Arnold, 2005) as well as numerous other books, articles, and book chapters in US diplomatic and military history.Barbara Brooks Tomblin is a naval historian and the author of GI. Nightingales: The Army Nurse Corps in World War II; With Utmost Spirit: Allied Naval Operations in the Mediterranean, 1942–45; and Bluejackets and Contrabands: African Americans and the Union Navy as well as articles on American military and naval history. She holds a doctorate in American history from Rutgers University where she also taught courses in military history.Susanne Vees-Gulani is an associate professor of modern languages and literatures at Case Western Reserve University. She is the author of Trauma and Guilt: Literature of Wartime Bombing in Germany (de Gruyter, 2003) and editor of Generational Shifts in Contemporary German Culture (Camden House, 2010, with Laurel Cohen-Pfister). Her research concentrates on twentieth and twenty-first century German literature and culture, World War II, postwar reconstruction and identity formation, trauma and memory studies, science and literature, and medicine and literature.Olli Vehviläinen (born in 1933) is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Tampere, Finland. He was the director of the research project Finland in the Second World War (SUOMA) and the chairman of the editorial board of a three-volume work on Finland in World War II which was published between 1989 and 1992. He is also the Finnish editor and coauthor of a joint Finnish-Russian work on the Winter War 1939–1940. Among his publications is Finland in the Second World War: Between Germany and Russia (Palgrave 2002).Colonel (retired) Randall Wakelam (PhD) teaches history and leadership at the Royal Military College of Canada. He has published extensively on issues of command and leadership and on military education. In addition to several papers and chapters, his books include The Science of Bombing: Operational Research in RAF Bomber Command; The Report of the Officer Development Board: Maj-Gen Roger Rowley and the Education of the Canadian Forces; and Cold War Fighters: Canadian Aircraft Procurement, 1945–54.Gerhard L. Weinberg served in the US Army in 1946–1947, took a history PhD at the University of Chicago, worked on Columbia University’s War Documentation Project, and established the program for microfilming the captured German documents. He taught at the Universities of Chicago, Kentucky, Michigan, and North Carolina and served on several US government advisory committees. Now retired, he is the author or editor of ten books including World in the Balance: Behind the Scenes of World War II; Hitler’s Foreign Policy 1933–1939: The Road to World War II; A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II; Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders; and over hundred chapters, articles, guides to archives, and other publications.Charlie Whitham is a senior lecturer in history at Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK. Charlie has published widely on Anglo-American diplomatic and economic relations during World War II and cold war periods, and is currently researching the role of American business organizations in postwar planning during the 1940s.Neville Wylie is a professor of international political history at the University of Nottingham, UK, and dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at its campus in Malaysia. He is author of Britain, Switzerland and the Second World War (2003), and editor of European Neutrals and Non-Belligerents during the Second World War (2002). His latest book, Barbed Wire Diplomacy: Britain, Germany and the Politics of Prisoners of War, 1939–1945 appeared in 2010 with Oxford University Press.Dr. Maochun Yu is a professor of East Asia and military history at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He holds a doctoral degree from the University of California at Berkeley (1994), a Masters degree from Swarthmore College (1987) and a Bachelors degree from Nankai University (1983). He is the author of The Dragon’s War: Allied Operations and the Fate of China, 1937–1947 (Naval Institute Press, 2006), OSS in China – Prelude to Cold War (Yale University Press, 1997), and numerous articles on modern China and the military and intelligence history of World War II and the cold war.
The most transformative event in world history since the Industrial Revolution, World War II, continues to be a benchmark to this day for national development, security and economic policies, and issues of morality. It might seem like hyperbole, but more than any event since the Industrial Revolution, this war was the most pivotal event of the past two or three centuries in terms of the carnage it caused, the developments in every aspect of human life, and the consequences it wrought. World War II represented the culmination of decades of diplomacy, modernization, and societal shifts across the world, between and among regions, and within nations. It also initiated whole new systems of government and international organization, sparked revolutions and counterrevolutions, and served as a warning to the world to avoid a repeat of the horror of atomic warfare or suffer the ultimate consequence: the destruction of the planet. Alterations, even revolutions, for that matter, in the international system (disintegration of empires, the rise of the United States, the end of fascism, the emergence of communism, and the creation of a global network of institutions that addressed topics from security to finance to health) and the very memories of the evils it eradicated remain with us. Generations born after the war have felt its effects.
Because of its timeliness, its influence on a host of areas affecting humanity, and its continual, and continued, contestation and benefits through relations among nations and peoples, World War II remains a significant topic for students. Also, the fact that the history of World War II reveals the contours of the human experience at the midpoint of the twentieth century means that we all have a stake in understanding the world it created. The two volumes that comprise this Companion to World War II explore the conflict’s contexts around the world, within nations, and across transnational groupings of people. We did not attempt to be exhaustive; readers will find topics, theaters, areas of the world, campaigns, and people excluded or addressed in glancing fashion. The goal is to shape research on World War II; that is, the volumes are suggestive in indicating areas for current and future study.
This work is also more than a military history, although one of its intentions is to cover the many sides of battle, operations, and strategy that engaged the belligerents. The Companion does so, however, largely without fixating in detail on individual battles and campaigns. Thus, the volumes include examinations of the “old” and “new” military histories. The 58 chapters in this Companion provide insights into how the war linked nations, systems, and cultures, and they also lay out agendas for future researchers to further that effort, as well as cover the import behind the military engagements.
The war, which some believe stretched from the Japanese invasion of China in July 1937 to Japan’s surrender in September 1945, encompassed six continents on which nations, governments, militaries, and civilians developed responses to deal with the conflict. The actual beginning of the war is in dispute: did it start in China, or later with the German invasion of Poland in September 1939? The European phase ended in May 1945, but did the onset of decolonization and wars of liberation actually push World War II to 1975, with the end of the Vietnam War and the signing of the Helsinki Accords that settled the postwar boundaries of Europe? Regardless, the impact and consequences of the war are clear. Nobody was spared its effects; it was truly history’s most comprehensive global event as well as war. Because of its worldwide scope, the vast mobilization of people and resources, and the use of cutting-edge technology, World War II was also the most destructive conflict in recorded human history in terms of lives and property lost. For this result alone, the war deserves further intensive study.
A Companion to World War II probes this most significant and traumatic of wars in its many global dimensions: military and technological, diplomatic and political, economic, gender and racial, and social and cultural between and within the major participants. In short, the volume addresses the historiography of the war, offering readers and scholars a survey of various subjects in a way that provides them with a state-of-the-art assessment of trends, issues, and topics.
Reflecting research in several subfields over the past seven decades, the writing of the history of World War II has undergone major change, most notably (but not exclusively) by the turn toward “bottom-up” social and cultural studies that explore the experiences of a variety of people (soldier, citizen, generals, strategists, policymakers, manufacturers, etc.) and their bearing on societies. A Companion to World War II embraces this new scholarship from an international as well as a transnational perspective. To be sure, the volume does not shun the classic tradition of strategic, operational, and even tactical narratives; the older-style “blood and guts” history is present on both a national and global scale. But the so-called “New Military History” is very much in evidence in terms of analyses of the way of war and the influence of war on society, and vice versa. Ideology, economics, culture, social change, interdisciplinary crossings, and transnational connections and movements figure prominently into the writing – indeed, into the very selection – of these chapters. No other historiographical collection strives for comparable extensive global coverage combined with thematic depth and breadth.
Of course, the effort to bring a greater understanding of the global nature of the war has been underway for some time, as has the push to expand the topics and methodologies of studying the conflict. The sheer volume of publications is daunting; shelves groan under the weight of this output (both scholarly and amateur) of every sort – biographies, memoirs, battle accounts, operational surveys, and analyses of the causes, nature, and consequences. The avalanche of books and articles make World War II one of the most researched topics in scholarship of any kind. A quick survey of finding aids on Internet sources such as Amazon, Google, and the Library of Congress, for instance, indicates a yield of anywhere from 60,000 to 300,000 books (and those numbers do not even reflect the enormous number of articles) that in some way touch on the war. The volume of scholarship is so considerable, and there is so much produced every month, that even a survey such as this one risks being outdated very quickly. Even this Companion has surely overlooked key sources, themes, and actors that will likely become critical to the study of the war in coming years.
Nevertheless, what is already in press is stunning in its breadth, depth, and numbers. The vast production of World War II literature of every kind staggers the mind, and surely does the same to students who seek to get a handle on the historiography. There is, of course, the cottage industry of deserved (though often weakly historicized) recognition of generations, nations, units, people, and the like that has a tendency to border on hagiography and hero worship. The now classic of this genre of hagiography is Tom Brokaw, The Greatest Generation (1998), but Stephen Ambrose both preceded and followed that laudatory study with many other popular works, such as Citizen Soldiers (1997), Band of Brothers (2001a), and The Good Fight (2001b). The classic war memoir of the realist model is still E. B. Sledge, With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa (1981).
And, there is the flipside: literature that tells of the horrifying, brutal side of men under duress or making decisions that led to mistakes, injury, and death, and attests to the bottomless level of degradation (as well as the heights) that humans can reach. See, for instance, Nicholson Baker, Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization (2008), as well as classic recollections of participants, such as Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five, or the Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (1969), regarding the bombing campaign in Europe, and John Hersey, Hiroshima (1946). These works are not included in the Companion but need mention because they are such a stock in trade that has made, and makes, the war a popular topic. Much of this outpouring is American-centered, and some of it very good for the illumination of experiences and attitudes, although other nations certainly have their triumphal “good war” motifs.
In a more scholarly sense, students can learn about the war in film and radio, cartoons and newspapers, art forms from music to painting, literature, advertising and propaganda, and through personal accounts. For still the best bilateral examination of the cultural aspects of the war, see Dower (1987); for a sampling from the American side, see Chambers and Culbert (1996), Doherty (1993), Fox (1975), Horten (2002), Roeder (1993), Bird and Rubenstein (1998), Minear (1999), and National Archives (n.d.); and for personal accounts, see Linderman (1997). Archives, maps, exhibits, and discussions are readily available (see, for example, the US Military Academy website, West Point Maps of the Asian Pacific War, available online at http://www.westpoint.edu/history/SitePages/WWII%20Asian%20Pacific%20Theater.aspx (one also exists of the European theater); useful is the “World War II Links on the Internet” website, available at http://homepage.mac.com/oldtownman/ww2_links.html). Home fronts have been studied in detail, and have become a significant focal point for investigators of race, gender, immigration, law, and other fields that deal with social change. For instance, on the US side, John Morton Blum, V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture during World War II (1976), though dated, still stands up to scrutiny. Other sources for other nations’ domestic lives can be found in the “Homelands” section of this Companion. Historians (military, diplomatic, economic, social, cultural), philosophers, theologians, social scientists, journalists, and other researchers have joined participants and military buffs to produce a myriad of reference books that consider seemingly every step and aspect of the war. More recently, work has blossomed on resistance movements, intelligence, and Nazi oppression, topics addressed in this Companion. One of the most keenly examined subjects has been the morality of the combatants at the national, group, and individual level (Fussell 1989; Burke 2001; Dear 2005; Bess 2006). Yet, even with such an outpouring, authors are careful to note that these works are not definitive; World War II still holds treasures beyond what scholars have already dug up.
By the 1970s and 1980s, as archives opened, secondary sources on campaigns and battles proliferated. At the same time, the war itself lost its immediacy and began to dim for younger generations. As a result, historians launched trends that lifted World War II from the domain of war buffs interested in generals, armies, tactics, and operations – in war as a game, or in a family member’s role in battle, or in militaries driven by great personalities. That stated, some of the best work on operational history continued to grace the shelves of military history libraries, including the masterpiece A War To Be Won by Murray and Millett (2000). Following in this tradition are several texts by major publishers that draw on updated research and approach the war through an organizational structure different from the standard Europe-first model. See, for instance, Zeiler, Annihilation: A Global Military History of World War II (2011). A combined military and strategic lens is found in Evan Mawdsley, World WarII: A New History (2009). Grand strategy and individual experiences comprise the readable Andrew Roberts, The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War (2011). With a more focused theme but equally encompassing is Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won (1995) and, in a specific theater, the superb H. P. Willmott, The Second World War in the East (1999). Before and after Williamson and Murray produced their study, however, others had also undertaken broad looks at military engagements, with an eye on the uses of technology, the political causes and consequences of the war, and a nod to the human context (Keegan 1989; Black 2003). The resulting body of work has provided a military history of the war noted for its thoroughness and attention to minute details of men and materiel, and battles and backdrops to conflict. The Companion touches on much of this methodology.
The Companion to World War II is designed for the researcher but it is also a useful pedagogical tool, and therefore reflects the teaching of the conflict at the advanced high school, but primarily the college and postgraduate levels. World War II and military history in general, for that matter, share an accessibility for the layperson, including students. In reality, war is understandable as well as exciting, dramatic, and tragic, and this conflict being the biggest of them all reaches into nearly everyone’s sensibilities. Teaching about World War II is an effective way to transmit complex ideas about ideology, ethics, nationalism, and the nature of war itself, to name but a handful of concepts. For a good overview of the pedagogy regarding the war and ideas for teaching it, see Murray (2011). Many of the publications on the war were designed with teaching in mind. Furthermore, because of the need to assign readable texts in classes that are of limited duration, it is also important to point out that the war has attracted a host of short overviews that survey the military and, on occasion, the social landscapes in each country or theater. The classic in this regard is James Stokesbury’s A Short History of World War II (1980), a text that still endures after more than thirty years in print. Other abbreviated explorations of the war followed Stokesbury – and, indeed, he subsequently published a short history of World War I, and then of other American wars as well (e.g. Kitchen 1990; Lyons 2010; see also Zeiler 2011). Although they do not offer the breadth of the thousand-page volumes, or the depth of the monograph, they are surprisingly complete in their coverage of topics. Thus, while the focus is on the military campaigns, they capitalize – in brief – on many of the themes found in this Companion. Presumably, future short histories of World War II will steer readers to some of the newer subjects that range beyond battles, strategies, and personalities.
Setting aside the brief treatments and the pedagogical aspects of the war, scholarship has reached into explorations of the very meaning of “total war” in terms of combat, the role and plight of civilian noncombatants, mobilization of home fronts (and the power that civilians, governments, and modes of production rendered to the belligerents) as well as the conduct of the war and the change World War II made on societies and in the international structure of power. The United States has been a major beneficiary of these studies, but Europe and Asia – and most recently, the China-Burma-India theater and the Soviet-German Eastern Front – have garnered increasing attention as scholars move into more subaltern looks at the war, refocus on less traditional topics like genocide, and discover new memoirs and correspondence of participants (Stoler and Gustafson 2003; Martel 2004; Chickering, Forster, and Greiner 2005). For an example of the (media-driven) American dominance on the war that taps into recent interests in societal aspects, see Ward and Burns (2007); for the Eastern Front, see Snyder (2010); and an example of correspondence is Masuda (2008). We now have a burgeoning body of literature on every nation involved in the conflict (Peszke 2006; Kimble 2006; Anonymous 2006; Merridale 2007), and subgroups within those nations (for subgroups, on the American side, for example, see Honey 1984, 1999; Daniels 1993; O’Sullivan 1996; Terkel 1997; Bentley 1998; Townsend 2000; Sklaroff 2002; Moore 2004; Alvarez 2008). This old and new military history covers so much ground that it is beyond a single author to present it; edited collections or coauthored works are the norm. Likewise, this Companion also draws on the efforts of dozens of scholars. But just as important as the number of scholars working in the field is the multinationality of their backgrounds. The Companion has sought out experts from a variety of nations, many of whom do not speak English as their primary language. They were able to bring a unique perspective, and include non-English sources, in their chapters in a way that proves invaluable to expanding our knowledge of the war.
We should not confuse the inclusion of all theaters – ranging from Europe and Asia to Africa and the Atlantic – with a truly global historical analysis. The Companion represents an initial attempt at mounting a comparative global historiography of World War II, but it admittedly relies on the reader to make those ties across borders. Earlier and current work take a global approach in terms of delving into common themes in the history on each continent, which is an accomplishment in itself, but the effort does not necessarily result in a truly comparative world history. Over four decades have passed since Peter Calvocoressi and Guy Wint divided their monumental work (it was one of the first of the studies in the thousand-page range), Total War, into two geographic sections: the western hemisphere and Asia. This was an attempt to write a history comprehensive in scope. They abandoned a chronological approach that lumped the theaters together, and took a sequential look (at Europe first, then Asia) because they found that “the two hemispheres were much less closely interdependent that we had at first supposed.” Their rationale rested on the premise that the stories behind the war begun by Hitler were “distinctly intelligible” from the Sino-American-Japanese conflict (Calvocoressi and Wint 1972, p. xii).
That argument can be debated because many of the chapters in this Companion indicate that there were certainly shared experiences, outlooks, and consequences around the world that render a globalized version of the war more possible than before. The bombing campaigns, for one, prove this point, as do issues of civilian involvement (both in mobilization and casualties), technology, strategy and coalition-building, imperialism, and expansionist ideological, national, and cultural visions. Again, the Companion makes a stab at globalizing the history of World War II by the very nature of the topics and authors chosen to write the chapters. But, it is suggestive of ways readers can draw parallels, contrasts to various aspects of the conflict, and narratives and analyses of the experiences of nations, groups, and people.
Nearly two decades ago, the now classic account of the war, Gerhard Weinberg’s A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, aimed to link the various theaters together without bogging down in excessive detail on the actual fighting. As Weinberg noted, he sought to overcome the parochialism of treatments that tended to focus on one nation or area at a time by showing the simultaneity of events, decisions, and movements. Thus, revealing the “inter-relationships between the various theaters and the choices faced by those in positions of leadership” were the objectives of his magnificent, masterly work. This Companion is fortunate to benefit from his insights in chapters that explore both the run-up to and conclusion of the war (Weinberg 1995, p. xiv). Yet while the coverage is comprehensive, A World at Arms is largely a political book and does not drill down into the various transnational themes of society, culture, economics, and even ideology to compare them across time and place.
The objective of the Companion is not to correct A World at Arms (or, for that matter, any other account of the conflict); rather, its goal is to complement and supplement Weinberg’s and others’ histories by situating them in the historiography. These volumes, therefore, introduce the reader to the myriad elements of the war’s developments, experiences, and influences, home fronts, battles and theaters, diplomacy, economics, intelligence, and roles of a host of nations, including major neutrals.
Our hope is that a subject addressed in a chapter might be suggestive of work to be done in another. For instance, chapters cover mobilization in Europe, and also collaboration and resistance in the region, but neither are treated in Asia or the United States; that might disappoint readers but they should be able to look elsewhere for that topic. Some obvious military history – such as battles on the Western Front before 1944 or the North African campaign – lack attention, though other theaters and campaigns are included. Australia, Canada, and Latin America do not come in for specific notice, nor does Hirohito or even Hitler and his rise to power in a sustained way. Some US topics that are commonly addressed, such as Japanese American internment or mobilization of the military, remain in the background, though all of these topics are significant and beg for attention. The collection tries to deal with issues from a variety of perspectives, so that as many themes as possible could be included. Still, readers will find many other subjects that are either novel (such as comparisons across nations) or commonplace (but approached in greater depth than seen before). We hope to acquaint students of World War II with ways of approaching the war, as well as with the potential for digging deeper.
To that end, the Companion is organized into broad sections under which various themes, methods, and topics fall. This categorization is evident in the Contents list but merits a word here in order to show the breadth and depth of the volume and also to explain why certain issues appear where they do. Six basic sections delineate the volume. First, the “Roots of War,” which addresses the buildup to the war and provides explanations of the factors of why war occurred, offers fairly traditional, political and economic approaches but includes the most recent research. A second section, “Fighting the War,” of mostly military history is broken down by theaters. Note should be made that not every battle, campaign, nor even area of combat is considered in this part; for example, Latin America and North Africa do not receive much mention. Section three and four are called “Multinational and Transnational Zones of Combat: Strategy” and “Multinational and Transnational Zones of Combat: Society” respectively, and the intention here is to analyze shared experiences, movements, and histories across borders in both a multinational (contacts across borders by official governments) and transnational (unofficial contacts by people, movements, experiences, and organizations beyond national boundaries) context. The fifth section deals with “Homelands,” and addresses the historical issues, and historiography, from the point of view of individual nations. Finally, the concluding sixth section provides insights into the “Aftermath and Consequences” of the war. The last chapter in this section, and in the volume as a whole, is fittingly written by Gerhard Weinberg, who also opens the Companion with the first entry in the first section.
When reflecting on the Contents listings, and then reading the chapters, one is struck by the broad scope of the topics. If the chapters are lumped into broad, methodological fields of inquiry – strategic, political, military, or social as well as cultural, economic, science, and the like – the coverage is both wide and deep. A rough count, for example, reveals that well over three quarters of the chapters embrace a strategic, political, or military approach. In addition, about half of all the chapters are social in content, and a quarter follow the cultural turn. Slightly less than a quarter have economic substance, and a handful deal with the themes of science, technology, or environment as well as intellectual history, and gender. A step back from these fields shows that well over half of the chapters are transnational or multinational in methodology. Actually, this estimate is rather conservative because many more touch, in some way, on the international and global connections and perspectives related to World War II. About ten of the contributions examine solely or primarily the national. So, the Companion looks at many topics, and views them from several angles, that signify some of the leading trends in the historiography of World War II.
The Companion to World War II engages the scholarly and official debates, in the English-speaking community as well as other languages, and addresses the course of the war through historiographical state-of-the field analysis, rather than narrative description, although chapters provide some historical background as a basis for understanding the reviews of the literature. Established and emerging experts in their fields have participated in this grand project, and we thank them profusely for the time and care taken to produce cutting-edge historiography. We hope that the volumes raise as many questions as they answer, or provoke researchers to read on as they investigate new topics or simply stretch the boundaries of old ones. All readers, moreover, should come away from the Companion with an awareness that the transformative World War II will continue to be a factor for years to come in the lives of every person, whether they realize it or not. It is the cardinal objective of these volumes to stimulate, support, and expand that realization.
Alvarez, L. (2008) The Power of the Zoot: Youth Culture and Resistance During World War II. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Ambrose, S. (1997) Citizen Soldiers: The US Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944–May 7, 1945. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Ambrose, S. (2001a) Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne: From Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Ambrose, S. (2001b) The Good Fight: How World War II Was Won. New York: Atheneum.
Anonymous (2006) A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary. London: Picador.
Baker, N. (2008) Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Bentley, A. (1998) Eating for Victory: Food Rationing and the Politics of Domesticity. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Bess, M. (2006) Choices Under Fire: Moral Dimensions of World War II. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Bird, W. L. and Rubenstein, H. R. (1998) Design for Victory: World War II Posters on the American Home Front. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
Black, J. (2003) World War II: A Military History. London: Routledge.
Blum, J. M. (1976) V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture During World War II. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Brokaw, T. (1998) The Greatest Generation. New York: Random House.
Burke, J. (2001) The Second World War: A People’s History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Calvocoressi, P. and Wint, G. (1972) Total War: The Story of World War II. New York: Pantheon.
Chambers, J. W. and Culbert, D. (1996) World War II: Film and History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chickering, R., Forster, S., and Greiner, B. (eds.) (2005) A World At Total War: Global Conflict and the Politics of Destruction, 1937–1945. Washington, DC: The German Historical Institute.
Daniels, R. (1993) Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II. New York: Hill and Wang.
Dear, I. C. B. (2005) The Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Doherty, T. (1993) Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture and World War II
