Rethinking World War Two

Author : Jeremy Black
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 286 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2015-01-29
Category : History
ISBN : 9781472583253

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Rethinking World War Two by Jeremy Black Pdf

History is both the past and our accounts of the past. In Rethinking World War Two, Jeremy Black explores the contesting accounts and interpretations of the war, critically examining the leading controversies surrounding the conflict, its aftermath and its ongoing significance in the modern world. The first half of the book considers controversies surrounding the course of the war, with chapters looking at the importance of military history, the causes of the war, politics and grand strategy and domestic politics. The second half goes on to consider the memory of the war and its echoes in political and military spheres, with chapters devoted to the memory of the war in Europe and in Asia. A detailed further reading section provides guidance on how to take study of various topics further. Rethinking World War Two is unique in offering a survey of both the events of the conflict and the various debates surrounding its memory. It will be an invaluable resource for any student of World War Two, particularly those seeking a better understanding of its continuing legacy in the postwar world.

Author : Jeremy Black
Publisher : Robinson
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2021-07-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781472145093

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Strategy and the Second World War by Jeremy Black Pdf

A concise, accessible account of strategy and the Second World War. How the war was won . . . and lost.. In 1941, the Second World War became global, when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union; Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor; and Germany declared war on the United States. In this timely book, which fills a real gap, Black engages with the strategic issues of the time - as they developed chronologically, and interacted - and relates these to subsequent debates about the choices made, revealing their continued political resonances. Beginning with Appeasement and the Soviet-German pact as key strategic means, Black examines the consequences of the fall of France for the strategies of all the powers. He shows how Allied strategy-making was more effective at the Anglo-American level than with the Soviet Union, not only for ideological and political reasons, but also because the Americans and British had a better grasp of the global dimension. He explores how German and Japanese strategies evolved as the war went badly for the Axis powers, and discusses the extent to which seeking to mould the post-war world informed Allied strategic choices from 1943 onwards, and the role these played in post-war politics, notably in the Cold War. Strategy was a crucial tool not only for conducting the war; it remains the key to understanding it today.

Author : Jeffrey W. Legro
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 271 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2016-12-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781501707315

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Rethinking the World by Jeffrey W. Legro Pdf

Stunning shifts in the worldviews of states mark the modern history of international affairs: how do societies think about—and rethink—international order and security? Japan's "opening," German conquest, American internationalism, Maoist independence, and Gorbachev's "new thinking" molded international conflict and cooperation in their eras. How do we explain such momentous changes in foreign policy—and in other cases their equally surprising absence?The nature of strategic ideas, Jeffrey W. Legro argues, played a critical and overlooked role in these transformations. Big changes in foreign policies are rare because it is difficult for individuals to overcome the inertia of entrenched national mentalities. Doing so depends on a particular nexus of policy expectations, national experience, and ready replacement ideas. In a sweeping comparative history, Legro explores the sources of strategy in the United States and Germany before and after the world wars, in Tokugawa Japan, and in the Soviet Union. He charts the likely future of American primacy and a rising China in the coming century. Rethinking the World tells us when and why we can expect changes in the way states think about the world, why some ideas win out over others, and why some leaders succeed while others fail in redirecting grand strategy.

Author : Allen Hunter
Publisher : Temple University Press
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 1998
Category : History
ISBN : 9781566395625

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Rethinking the Cold War by Allen Hunter Pdf

The end of the Cold War should have been an occasion to reassess its origins, history, significance, and consequences. Yet most commentators have restated positions already developed during the Cold War. They have taken the break-up of the Soviet Union, the shift toward capitalism and electoral politics in Eastern Europe and countries formerly in the USSR as evidence of a moral and political victory for the United States that needs no further elaboration. This collection of essays offers a more complex and nuanced analysis of Cold War history. It challenges the prevailing perspective, which editor Allen Hunter terms "vindicationism." Writing from different disciplinary and conceptual vantage points, the contributors to the collection invite a rethinking of what the Cold War was, how fully it defined the decades after World War II, what forces sustained it, and what forces led to its demise. By exploring a wide range of central themes of the era, Rethinking the Cold War widens the discussion of the Cold War's place in post-war history and intellectual life.

Author : Akira Iriye
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 1981
Category : History
ISBN : 0674695828

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Power and Culture by Akira Iriye Pdf

Power and Culture challenges existing assumptions about the war in the Pacific. By focusing on the interplay between culture and international relations, one of the world’s most distinguished scholars of United States–Japanese affairs offers a startling reassessment of what the war really meant to the two combatants. Akira Iriye examines the Japanese–American war for the first time from the cultural perspectives of both countries, arguing that it was more a search for international order than a ruthless pursuit of power. His thesis is bold, for he convincingly demonstrates that throughout the war many Japanese leaders shared with their American counterparts an essentially Wilsonian vision of international cooperation. As the war drew to a close, these statesmen began to plan for a cooperative world structure that was remarkably similar to the ideas of American policymakers. Indeed, as Iriye shows, the stunning success of Japanese–American postwar relations can be understood only in the light of a deep convergence of their ideals. Iriye has drawn his conclusions from original research, using official Japanese archives and recently declassified American documents. These offer a totally new perspective on the ways leaders in both countries actually viewed the war they were waging.

Author : Peter Pogany
Publisher : iUniverse
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2006-09
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0595410790

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Rethinking the World by Peter Pogany Pdf

The post-Marxian, new historical materialism described in this book breathes new life into our comprehension of the world. A 200-year perspective on modernity tells us that an all-embracing physical phenomenon holds humankind in its grip. History has recorded two distinct global systems thus far: "laissez faire/metal money," which spanned most of the 19th century and lasted until the outbreak of World War I, and "mixed economy/weak multilateralism," which began after 1945 and exists today. The period between the two systems, 1914-1945, was a chaotic transition. This evolutionary pulsation is well known to students of thermodynamics. It corresponds to the behavior of expanding and complexifying material systems. The exhaustion of oil and other natural resources is pushing the world toward a third global system that may be called "two-level economy/strong multilateralism." It will be impossible to get there without a new chaotic transition. No repeated warnings, academic advice, moral advocacy, inspired reforms, or political leadership can provide a shortcut around it. But if it took "1914-1945" to make a relatively minor adjustment in the global order, what will it take to make a major one?

Author : Frank Biess,Robert G. Moeller
Publisher : Berghahn Books
Page : 338 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2010
Category : Citizenship
ISBN : 1845457323

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Histories of the Aftermath by Frank Biess,Robert G. Moeller Pdf

In 1945, Europeans confronted a legacy of mass destruction and death: millions of families had lost their homes and livelihoods; millions of men in uniform had lost their lives; and millions more had been displaced by the war's destruction, and the genocidal policies of the Nazi regime. From a range of methodological historical perspectives--military, cultural, and social, to film and gender and sexuality studies--this volume explores how Europeans came to terms with these multiple pasts. With a focus on distinctive national experiences in both Eastern and Western Europe, it illuminates how postwar stabilization coexisted with persistent insecurities, injuries, and trauma.

Author : Domenico Losurdo
Publisher : Verso Books
Page : 499 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2015-02-02
Category : History
ISBN : 9781781687246

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War and Revolution by Domenico Losurdo Pdf

War and Revolution identifies and takes to task a reactionary trend among contemporary historians. It is a revisionist tendency discernible in the work of authors such as Ernst Nolte, who traces the impetus behind the Holocaust to the excesses of the Russian Revolution; or Franois Furet, who links the Stalinist purges to an "illness" originating with the French Revolution. In this vigorous riposte to those who would denigrate the history of emancipatory struggle, Losurdo captivates the reader with a tour de force account of modern revolt, providing a new perspective on the English, American, French and twentieth-century revolutions.

Author : Peter J. Kuznick,James Gilbert
Publisher : Smithsonian Institution
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2013-04-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9781588344151

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Rethinking Cold War Culture by Peter J. Kuznick,James Gilbert Pdf

This anthology of essays questions many widespread assumptions about the culture of postwar America. Illuminating the origins and development of the many threads that constituted American culture during the Cold War, the contributors challenge the existence of a monolithic culture during the 1950s and thereafter. They demonstrate instead that there was more to American society than conformity, political conservatism, consumerism, and middle-class values. By examining popular culture, politics, economics, gender relations, and civil rights, the contributors contend that, while there was little fundamentally new about American culture in the Cold War era, the Cold War shaped and distorted virtually every aspect of American life. Interacting with long-term historical trends related to demographics, technological change, and economic cycles, four new elements dramatically influenced American politics and culture: the threat of nuclear annihilation, the use of surrogate and covert warfare, the intensification of anticommunist ideology, and the rise of a powerful military-industrial complex. This provocative dialogue by leading historians promises to reshape readers' understanding of America during the Cold War, revealing a complex interplay of historical norms and political influences.

Author : Elizabeth Borgwardt,Christopher McKnight Nichols,Andrew Preston
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 513 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2021
Category : History
ISBN : 9780190695668

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Rethinking American Grand Strategy by Elizabeth Borgwardt,Christopher McKnight Nichols,Andrew Preston Pdf

What is grand strategy ? What does it aim to achieve? And what differentiates it from normal strategic thought--what, in other words, makes it "grand"? In answering these questions, most scholars have focused on diplomacy and warfare, so much so that "grand"? In answering these questions, most scholars have focused on diplomacy and warfare, so much so that "grand strategy" has become almost an equivalent of "military history." The traditional attention paid to military affairs is understandable, but in today's world it leaves out much else that could be considered political, and therefore strategic. Just as contemporary world politics is driven by a wide range of non-military issues, the most thorough considerations of grand strategy must consider the bases of peace and security--including gender, race, the environment, and a wide range of cultural, social, political, and economic issues. Rethinking American Grand Strategy assembles a roster of leading historians to examine America's place in the world. Its innovative chapters re-examine familiar figures, such as John Quincy Adams, George Kennan, and Henry Kissinger, while also revealing the forgotten episodes and hidden voices of American grand strategy. They expand the scope of diplomatic and military history by placing the grand strategies of public health, race, gender, humanitarianism, and the law alongside military and diplomatic affairs to reveal hidden strategists as well as strategies. --

Author : Atina Grossmann,Mark Edele,Sheila Fitzpatrick
Publisher : Wayne State University Press
Page : 314 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2017-12-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9780814342688

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Shelter from the Holocaust by Atina Grossmann,Mark Edele,Sheila Fitzpatrick Pdf

The first book-length study of the survival of Polish Jews in Stalin’s Soviet Union.

Author : John Lewis Gaddis
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 456 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 1997
Category : History
ISBN : UOM:39015036073214

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We Now Know by John Lewis Gaddis Pdf

One of America's leading historians offers the first major history of the Cold War. Packed with new information drawn from previously unavailable sources, the book offers major reassessments of Stalin, Mao, Khrushchev, Kennedy, Eisenhower, and Truman.

Author : William Stueck
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 303 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2013-04-25
Category : History
ISBN : 9781400847617

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Rethinking the Korean War by William Stueck Pdf

Fought on what to Westerners was a remote peninsula in northeast Asia, the Korean War was a defining moment of the Cold War. It militarized a conflict that previously had been largely political and economic. And it solidified a series of divisions--of Korea into North and South, of Germany and Europe into East and West, and of China into the mainland and Taiwan--which were to persist for at least two generations. Two of these divisions continue to the present, marking two of the most dangerous political hotspots in the post-Cold War world. The Korean War grew out of the Cold War, it exacerbated the Cold War, and its impact transcended the Cold War. William Stueck presents a fresh analysis of the Korean War's major diplomatic and strategic issues. Drawing on a cache of newly available information from archives in the United States, China, and the former Soviet Union, he provides an interpretive synthesis for scholars and general readers alike. Beginning with the decision to divide Korea in 1945, he analyzes first the origins and then the course of the conflict. He takes into account the balance between the international and internal factors that led to the war and examines the difficulty in containing and eventually ending the fighting. This discussion covers the progression toward Chinese intervention as well as factors that both prolonged the war and prevented it from expanding beyond Korea. Stueck goes on to address the impact of the war on Korean-American relations and evaluates the performance and durability of an American political culture confronting a challenge from authoritarianism abroad. Stueck's crisp yet in-depth analysis combines insightful treatment of past events with a suggestive appraisal of their significance for present and future.

Author : David P. Calleo
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 411 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2003-03-02
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780691113678

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Rethinking Europe's Future by David P. Calleo Pdf

Rethinking Europe's Future is a major reevaluation of Europe's prospects as it enters the twenty-first century. David Calleo has written a book worthy of the complexity and grandeur of the challenges Europe now faces. Summoning the insights of history, political economy, and philosophy, he explains why Europe was for a long time the world's greatest problem and how the Cold War's bipolar partition brought stability of a sort. Without the Cold War, Europe risks revisiting its more traditional history. With so many contingent factors--in particular Russia and Europe's Muslim neighbors--no one, Calleo believes, can pretend to predict the future with assurance. Calleo's book ponders how to think about this future. The book begins by considering the rival ''lessons'' and trends that emerge from Europe's deeper past. It goes on to discuss the theories for managing the traditional state system, the transition from autocratic states to communitarian nation states, the enduring strength of nation states, and their uneasy relationship with capitalism. Calleo next focuses on the Cold War's dynamic legacies for Europe--an Atlantic Alliance, a European Union, and a global economy. These three systems now compete to define the future. The book's third and major section examines how Europe has tried to meet the present challenges of Russian weakness and German reunification. Succeeding chapters focus on Maastricht and the Euro, on the impact of globalization on Europeanization, and on the EU's unfinished business--expanding into ''Pan Europe,'' adapting a hybrid constitution, and creating a new security system. Calleo presents three models of a new Europe--each proposing a different relationship with the U.S. and Russia. A final chapter probes how a strong European Union might affect the world and the prospects for American hegemony. This is a beautifully written book that offers rich insight into a critical moment in our history, whose outcome will shape the world long after our time.

Author : Claus-Christian Szejnmann
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 290 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2009-01-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9780826443236

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Rethinking History, Dictatorship and War by Claus-Christian Szejnmann Pdf