The Routledge History of the Second World War sums up the latest trends in the scholarship of that conflict, covering a range of major themes and issues.
The book delivers a thematic analysis of the many ways in which study of the Second World War can take place, considering international, transnational, and global approaches, and serves as a major jumping off point for further research into the specific fields covered by each of the expert authors. It demonstrates the global and total nature of the Second World War, giving due coverage to the conflict in all major theatres and through the lens of the key combatants and neutrals, examines issues of race, gender, ideology, and society during the war, and functions as a textbook to educate students as to the trends that have taken place in how the conflict has been (and can be) interpreted in the modern world. Divided into twelve parts that cover central themes of the conflict, including theatres of war, leadership, societies, occupation, secrecy and legacies, it enables those with no memory of war to approach it with a view to comprehending what it was all about and places the history of this conflict into a context that is international, transnational, and institutional.
This is a comprehensive and accessible reference volume for anyone interested in the most up to date scholarship on this major conflict.
Chapter 18 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com
Part 1: Outbreaks: War to World War
1. Avoiding War? British Diplomacy and the Outbreak of War in 1939
Paul R. Bartrop
2. Planning Armageddon: Operation Barbarossa
David Stahel
3. The Origins of the War in the Pacific: 1937-1941
Greg Kennedy
Part 2: Perspectives: Tradition and Change
4. Nationalism, Identity, and Race in the Second World War
Alex Alvarez
5. A Transnational Perspective of Women on the Home Front
Frances Davey and Joanna Salapska-Gelleri
Part 3: Theatres: Fighting the War
6. The European War: An Overview
Shaun Mawdsley
7. War of Great Distances: Allied Strategy in the Pacific War, 1941-1945
Erik D. Carlson
8. The Crucial Phase of the China Theatre: The War of Resistance against Japan, 1937-1938
Kristin Mulready-Stone
9. The Battle for North Africa
Glyn Harper
10. The War at Sea, 1939-1945
Marcus Faulkner
11. War in the Third Dimension: The Exercise of Air Power in the Second World War
Richard Overy
Part 4: Leadership: Directing the War
12. Directing the War from Triumph to Disaster: The German and Italian Cases
Bastian Matteo Scianna
13. Churchill and Roosevelt as War Leaders
Robin Prior
14. Japanese Leadership in the Second World War
Richard B. Frank
15. Was Stalin Necessary? Soviet Command in the Great Patriotic War
Stephen Brown and David Sutton
Part 5: Societies: Within the Combat Zone
16. Conservatism, Radicalism and Global Conflict: Britain’s War, 1939-1945
Jonathan Fennell
17. Germany at War
Eleanor Hancock
18. Japanese Society at War: History and Memory
Philip Seaton
19. Italian Society during World War II
Shira Klein
20. Poles under German and Soviet Occupations
Paweł Machcewicz
21. France at War: A Country Divided or a Society United?
Shannon L. Fogg
22. Stalin’s War or People’s War? Total War behind the Front Lines
Stephen Brown and David Sutton
23. China Divided and at War, 1937-1945
Kristin Mulready-Stone
Part 6: Societies: Beyond the Combat Zone
24. America at War
John W. Jeffries
25. Canada: Limited Liability and Total War
Graham Broad
26. Australia and the Second World War
Lachlan Grant and Karl James
27. A Conscripted Society: Sustaining New Zealand’s War Effort
David Littlewood
28. South Asia in World War II
Eric A. Strahorn
29. Brazil at War: An Unexpected, but Necessary, Ally
Vinicius Mariano de Carvalho and Francsico César Alves Ferraz
30. Mexico: In the Shadow of World War II
Monica Rankin
Part 7: Occupation: Compliance and Resistance
31. Western Europe under Occupation
Joshua Fortin
32. Collaboration and Resistance in the East: Explaining a Contested Past
Vesna Drapac
33. Armies of Collaboration and Resistance in Southeast Asia
Kevin Blackburn
Part 8: Surviving: Remaining Neutral
34. Switzerland as a Neutral State during the Second World War
Georg Kreis
35. Sweden: An Ambiguous Participant
John Gilmour
36. Not Neutral: Spain and the Second World War
David A. Messenger
37. Apolitical Arbiter? The Vatican as a Neutral during the Second World War
Adrian Ciani
Part 9: Secrecy: The Clandestine War
38. Uncovering Secrets: Spies, Double Agents, and Codebreakers
Mary Kathryn Barbier
39. Australasian Special Operations in the Second World War
Rhys Ball and Shaun Mawdsley
Part 10: Inhumanity: Savagery and Mass Murder
40. Crimes against Humanity
Mark Edele
41. German Violations of the Law of War
Michael Bryant
42. The Second World War as a Genocidal Conflict
Jennifer Rich and Michael Dickerman
Part 11: Endings: Downfall and Victory
43. East-Central Europe: From Nazi Rule to Communism, 1943-1948
Gareth Pritchard
44. War and Destruction in Western Europe: Picking up the Pieces
Paul R. Bartrop
45. Sideshow or Pandora’s Box? Ending the Pacific War in Southeast Asia, 1945
Brian P. Farrell
46. The Quest for Justice in the Aftermath of the War
Deborah Mayersen
Part 12: Legacies: Memory and History
47. Remembering and Forgetting the War
Jordana Silverstein
48. The Second World War in Global History
Gary Sheffield
Biography
Paul R. Bartrop is Professor Emeritus of History at Florida Gulf Coast University, USA, and Honorary Principal Fellow, University of Melbourne. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of over 25 books relating to the Holocaust, genocide, and the Second World War.
