The World in Flames A World War II Sourcebook

by Coetzee, Frans; Shevin-Coetzee, Marilyn

• ISBN13: 9780195174427
• ISBN10: 0195174429
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780197630570
• Additional ISBN(s): 9780195174410
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-03-03
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

An edited volume of primary sources from the Second World War, The World in Flames: A WWII Reader, provides, for the first time, and in a convenient and comprehensive package, an ambitious and wide-ranging insight that conveys the sheer scale and reach of the conflict, and the twelve-chaptervolume includes sufficient narrative and analysis for the reader to grasp both the war's broad outlines and the context and significance of each particular source. Beginning with the growing disenchantment over the World War I peace settlements and the determination of German, Italian and Japanese leaders to revise the situation, the book traces descent into open, armed conflict with the Allies, the spectacular early successes of the Germans and Japanese, thestabilization and eventual pivotal campaigns of 1942, and the arduous efforts over the remaining three years to destroy the Axis capacity to wage war. Examples are drawn from a wide range of documents interspersed with contemporary images such as posters, photos, cartoons.Throughout, the book provides a rounded account of the struggle, balancing a consideration of strategic and tactical issues, the perspectives of the various combatant forces, the different theatres of operations, the various services involved (including aerial and naval warfare), and the experiencesof participants across the spectrum from privates to generals. Furthermore, in addition to illustrating the conduct of the war, it illuminates its consequences for the societies involved. Selections treat the mobilization of labor and intellect, trace the impact upon women and children, and explore the tendency of the war to throw into bold relief both nobleideals and persistent domestic tensions, not to mention the depths of human depravity in the Holocaust. Themes that have a special resonance for the postwar era, such as the perils of nuclear weapons, are also given their due. Coupled with chapter on historical memory, these features enable studentsto appreciate the place of World War II place in the longer course of the twentieth century.

Author Biography

Both Frans Coetzee and Marilyn Shevin-Coetzee have taught at Yale and George Washington Universities and earned fellowships from the ACLS, Alexander von Humboldt, Fulbright and Mellon Foundations, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton,and the NEH. They are the authors or editors of five books and numerous articles and maintain a website on world history, www.history4everyone.com.

Table of Contents

Seeds of Turmoil

Mussolini and the Masses

Abyssinia's Plight

Spain's Anguish

Japan's Outlook

Statement at Lushan

Rape of Nanking

Hossbach Memorandum

Appeasement

France Goes to War

"Only Movement Brings Victory": Blitzkrieg

Soviet-Finnish War

Rethinking Armored Warfare

Rotterdam in Flames

France's Collapse

Strange Defeat

A Certain Eventuality

De Gaulle's Appeal to France

French Collaboration

Occupied Poland

Air Raid on Southampton

London is Burning

The Widening War

A War for Freedom?

Warning Signs from Japan

Japan's Decision for War

Avenging Western Imperialism

Yamamoto's Strategy

Attack on Pearl Harbor

Plan Dog

Forging Allied Strategy

Allied Grand Strategy

Desert War

Survival in North Africa

Germany Strikes East

"The Criminal Orders"

Saving Moscow

Combat on the Russian Front

Hitler's Obstinance

Mobilizing For War

Arsenal of Democracy

Mexican-American Discrimination

Factories on Rails

Producing for Victory

Ford's Willow Run

Germany's Delayed Mobilization

German Forced Labor

Chicanas in the Factory

Navajo Code Talkers

An Anthropologist Gathers Intelligence

Photo Intelligence

The Role of Science

The Tide Turns: June-December 1942

The Mood in America

Rommel Reflects on the Desert War

Breakthrough at El Alamein

Eisenhower Reflects on Operation Torch

Stalingrad: The Rat's War

Admiral Ugaki Reflects on Midway

The Strain of Jungle Warfare

Winning the Solomons

Why Japan Lost Guadalcanal

The European Theater

Bombing Ploesti

Flying a B-17

Area Bombing

Massacre by Bombing

U-Boat Peril

Germany's U-Boat Strategy

The Fall of Mussolini

The Polish Resistance

Greece at War

Yugoslavia's Partisans

Siege of Leningrad

Panzer Warfare in the East

Soviet Tactical Doctrine

Battle of Kursk

Eisenhower and Overlord

D-Day

Ernie Pyle's War

The Asian Theater

Bataan Death March

"Vinegar Joe" and China

The British Army in Burma

Japanese Operations in Burma

Marxism and Burmese Resistance

The Indian Situation

Marines on Peleliu

Kamikaze Attack

The Decision to Use the Bomb

Preparing to Invade Japan

Hiroshima

The War At Home in America

The Rabbis March on Washington

To Undo a Mistake

The Internment of German-Americans

Why Should We March?

New World a-Coming

The Zoot Suiters

Discrimination against Mexican-Americans

The Stocking Panic

Prayer at Iwo Jima

Readjusting to Family Life

The Culture and Psychology of War

The Nazi New Order

The Four Freedoms

The Atlantic Charter

The GI's Perspective

Japan and Greater East Asia

The Anthropology of Japanese Conduct

Soldiers Under Stress

Civilians Under Stress

Religion in the Skies

Revival of Russian Orthodoxy

Christian Morality in Wartime

'Muscular Christianity'

Gandhi and Non-Violence

The New Imperatives of Education

Radio on the Home front

Film and Propaganda

War Bonds and Mass Persuasion

The Welfare State

The Inhumanity of Man: The Holocaust

Defining Genocide

Euthanasia

Atrocities in Kamenets-Podolsky

The Youngest Victims

Wannsee Conference

A Polish Witness to Massacre

Lidice

The Warsaw Ghetto

Himmler and the Final Solution

The Holocaust in Greece

Von Moltke's Thoughts on Resistance

Treblinka

Out of the "Dark and Deadly Valley"

Nazis to the Bitter End?

Liberating the Death Camps

A Mother Ponders the War's End

The German Problem

America's Plans for Postwar Germany

The Nuremberg Trials

Displaced Jews in Occupied Germany

Japanese Biological Warfare

The Tokyo War Trials

American Policy for Postwar Japan

Japan Adjusts to Occupation

Revolution and Liberation in Indo-China

Ho Chi Minh Appeals to Truman

Africa Speaks

"The Long Telegram" and Containment

The Iron Curtain

The American Century

Commemorating WWII: Confronting the Past, Writing the Future

Remembering D-Day and the Boys of Pointe du Hoc

Germany Commemorates the Fortieth Anniversary of Defeat

The Soviet Union and the Uses of Victory

The Holocaust Museum

Japan and the War's Contested Memory

Japan's Comfort Women

Hiroshima, Culture Wars, and the Enola Gay

World War II Timeline

World War II Bibliography

Index

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