The Origins of the Second World War

by Overy,R. J.

• ISBN13: 9781405824699
• ISBN10: 1405824697
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2008-07-10
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This book is an ideal introduction to this much-studied topic, written by a major name in the field. The previous editions sold over 37,000 copies The author is a leading authority on the subject The Second World War is a very popular subject among the general reader

Author Biography

Richard Overy is Professor of History at the University of Exeter.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
Acknowledgements	p. xiii
Chronology	p. xiv
Who's Who	p. xviii
Glossary	p. xxiv
Maps	p. xxix
Background	p. 1
Explaining the Second World War	p. 3
Analysis	p. 11
The International Crisis	p. 13
The collapse of the League	p. 14
France and Britain	p. 17
America and the Soviet Union	p. 23
From the Rhineland to Munich	p. 25
Economic and Imperial Rivalry	p. 31
The imperial powers	p. 32
The 'have-not' powers	p. 35
The failure of 'economic appeasement'	p. 42
Armaments and Domestic Politics	p. 46
Rearmament	p. 46
Finance, industry and labour	p. 54
Rearmament and domestic politics	p. 59
War Over Poland	p. 62
The aftermath of Munich	p. 62
The Soviet factor	p. 71
The outbreak of war	p. 77
From European to World War	p. 82
The war in the west	p. 82
Barbarossa	p. 85
The coming of world war	p. 88
Assessment	p. 93
Hitler's War?	p. 95
Documents	p. 101
The Treaty of Versailles and Germany	p. 102
The Covenant of the League	p. 103
The search for a settlement	p. 103
American 'appeasement'	p. 104
Stalin anticipates war	p. 104
The 'Hossbach memorandum'	p. 105
Preparation for war before Munich	p. 106
The Munich Conference	p. 107
The Munich Agreement	p. 108
Economic pressure on Japan	p. 109
Mussolini's vision of empire	p. 110
Hitler's dream of world power	p. 111
Economic appeasement	p. 112
Britain and Germany in the Balkans	p. 112
The Four-Year Plan	p. 113
Economic dangers for Britain	p. 114
The crisis in France	p. 114
'Peace for our time'	p. 115
The change of mood in the west	p. 115
Hitler plans to crush Poland	p. 116
Chamberlain guarantees Poland	p. 117
The Franco-British 'war plan', 1939	p. 117
British intelligence on Germany	p. 118
Stalin warns the west after Munich	p. 119
The Franco-British failure in Moscow	p. 119
The Soviet reaction to German advances, 1939	p. 120
The German-Soviet Pact	p. 121
Hitler gambles on western weakness	p. 122
The last gasp of appeasement	p. 123
Bonnet's doubts about war	p. 123
Poland in the middle	p. 124
The last days of peace	p. 125
Chamberlain's 'awful Sunday'	p. 125
Berlin proposes peace	p. 126
The Tripartite Pact	p. 127
Preparation for total mobilization in Germany	p. 128
The Barbarossa Directive	p. 128
The German attack on Russia	p. 129
Russia raises the price for co-operation	p. 129
Japan decides on war	p. 130
Creating the new world order	p. 130
References	p. 133
Index	p. 145
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