The best account of the coming of World War II in Europe is
D. C. Watt, How War Came (London, 1989), with a sharp focus on the months preceding the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. A more global analysis is offered by
Gerhard J. Weinberg’s monumental history, A World at Arms (Cambridge, 1994). The way in which the United States became steadily drawn into the European conflict during 1939–41 is chronicled in detail in
William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, The Undeclared War (New York, 1953). On Roosevelt’s growing readiness to support Britain by all means short of war, see, besides the works by Dallek and Reynolds cited in the previous section,
James M. Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom (New York, 1970);
Theodore A. Wilson, The First Summit (Boston, 1969); and
Warren F. Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act (Baltimore, 1969). This last is an important study of the making of the Lend-Lease Act. Its application to the Soviet Union after June 1941 is described in
Raymond H. Dawson, The Decision to Aid Russia (Chapel Hill, 1959), and
George C. Herring, Aid to Russia (New York, 1973). The American public’s increasing willingness to help the democracies against Nazi Germany is documented in such works as
Mark L. Chadwin, Warhawks (New York, 1968);
Walter Johnson, The Battle Against Isolation (Chicago, 1944); and
James C. Schneider, Should America Go to War? (Chapel Hill, 1989). On the less well known aid to France, which also began around 1939, consult
Julian Hurstfield, America and the French Nation (Chapel Hill, 1986). The still persisting isolationism in America is documented, among others, in
Justin D. Doenecke, The Danger Undaunted (Stanford, 1990).
There is an enormous amount of scholarly literature on “the road to Pearl Harbor.” The standard “orthodox” presentation is
Herbert Feis, The Road to Pearl Harbor (Princeton, 1950), and the most extreme “revisionist” interpretation – that the Roosevelt administration was engaged in a conspiracy to maneuver the Japanese into firing the first shot so that the United States might enter the war in Europe through the Asian “back door” – is in
Charles C. Tansill, Back Door to War (Chicago, 1952), and
Charles A. Beard, President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War (New York, 1948). Most studies reject the conspiracy theory but add many nuances to the story climaxing in the Pearl Harbor attack. For an excellent recent study, see
Sadao Asada, From Mahan to Pearl Harbor (Annapolis, 2006). The role of the Axis pact in the deteriorating U.S.-Japanese relations is analyzed critically in
Paul W. Schroeder, The Axis Alliance and Japanese-American Relations (Ithaca, 1958), and
Saul Friedlander, Prelude to Downfall (New York, 1967). The crucial petroleum question as a determining factor is discussed in
Irvine H. Anderson, The Standard Vacuum Oil Company and United States East Asian Policy (Princeton, 1975). The story is brought up to date in an excellent chapter in
Yergin’s The Prize (New York, 1991). See also
Jonathan G. Utley, Going to War with Japan (Knoxville, 1985).
Jonathan Marshall, To Have and Have Not (Berkeley, 1995), offers a unique insight into the struggle for control over Southeast Asia’s rich resources as a key aspect of the U.S.-Japanese crisis. The Washington “conversations” of 1941, in which the United States and Japan sought to avoid a final showdown, are ably presented in
Robert Butow, The John Doe Associates (Stanford, 1974). See also the same author’s
Tojo and the Coming of the War (Princeton, 1961). By far the best account of the U.S.-Japanese crisis in the summer and fall of the year is
Waldo Heinrichs, Threshold of War (New York, 1988). The book stresses Roosevelt’s concern with preventing Soviet collapse as the main factor behind his get-tough policy toward Japan.
Sadao Iguchi, Demystifying Pearl Harbor (Tokyo, 2010) offers a reliable analysis of the last several days before Pearl Harbor from the perspective of Japan’s diplomats as well as military leaders. The book, along with
Youli Sun, China and the Origins of the Pacific War (New York, 1993), should serve to put the Japanese aggression in China back into the picture as a major stumbling block in the last-minute negotiations in Washington.
Among the voluminous literature on the Pearl Harbor attack, the most detailed and reliable is
Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept (New York, 1981). See also the same author’s
Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History (New York, 1986). The influential book by
Roberta Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Stanford, 1962), argues that it was the volume of the cable traffic that created confusion in official Washington and made it impossible to communicate relevant messages to the commanders in Hawaii in time to avert the disaster.
Thousands of books have been written on American strategy and diplomacy during World War II. The best brief summary is
Gaddis Smith, American Diplomacy During the Second World War (New York, 1985). On overall strategy, see
Maurice Matloff and Edwin M. Snell, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare (Washington, D.C., 1953). There are two excellent studies of military preparedness and mobilization undertaken by the United States and other countries:
Alan S. Milward, War, Economy, and Society (Berkeley, 1977), and
Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York, 1987). For an up-to-date reference guide to the war, consult
Thomas W. Zeiler, ed., A Companion to the Second World War (Malden, Mass., 2012).
The Anglo-American alliance is best understood by reading the letters exchanged between the two wartime leaders, ably edited by
Warren F. Kimball: Churchill and Roosevelt (Princeton, 1984). On the relationship among the Big Three,
Herbert Feis, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin (Princeton, 1957), is still useful, but it should be supplemented by
Martin Sherwin, A World Destroyed (New York, 1975), a study of the development of nuclear weapons and of their implications for postwar world affairs.
Diana Clemens, Yalta (New York, 1970), shows that there was as much U.S.-Soviet agreement as disagreement at the 1945 conference.
Because the latter part of the war was also the period of preparation for the defining of the postwar world, and because the postwar world was to be characterized by the breakup of the wartime alliance into two camps, many accounts of World War II are also, in effect, descriptions of the origins of the Cold War. Among the most important in tracing this transition in Europe are
William H. McNeill, America, Britain, and Russia (London, 1953);
John W. Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War (New York, 1972);
Daniel Yergin, The Shattered Peace (Boston, 1977);
Vojtech Mastny, Russia’s Road to the Cold War (New York, 1979); and
Lynn E. Davis, The Cold War Begins (Princeton, 1974).
Hugh DeSantis, The Diplomacy of Silence (Chicago, 1980), is unique in its focus on State Department officials’ changing perceptions of the Soviet Union. Also see, in this connection,
Ralph Levering, American Opinion and the Russian Alliance (Chapel Hill, 1976).
On the Pacific theater of the war,
Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind (New York, 1978), offers a fascinating account of Anglo-American cooperation as well as differences over such matters as the future of China and of the British Empire.
Xiaoyuan Liu, A Partnership for Disaster (Cambridge, 1996), examines wartime Chinese and American plans for the disposition of the Japanese empire, while
Akira Iriye, Power and Culture (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), suggests areas of convergence in official American and Japanese wartime thinking. An extremely interesting study of American interrogations of Japanese prisoners of war is offered by
Roger Dingman, Deciphering the Rising Sun (Annapolis, 2009).
P. Scott Corbett, Quiet Passages (Kent, Ohio, 1987), traces the wartime exchanges of Japanese and American diplomatic and other personnel. The development and use of atomic weapons are chronicled in Sherwin’s World Destroyed and in such other works as
Herbert Feis, The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II (Princeton, 1961);
Leon Sigal, Fighting to a Finish (Ithaca, 1988); and
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Racing the Enemy (Cambridge, Mass., 2005). This last book, based on Soviet as well as U.S. and Japanese archives, makes a persuasive case that the dropping of the atomic bomb, combined with Soviet entry into the war against Japan, induced the latter’s top leaders to surrender. But the controversy as to whether the dropping of two atomic bombs was really necessary remains quite alive. Any discussion of the question must, however, be grounded upon an understanding of the unprecedentedly destructive power of nuclear weapons, and books like
Paul Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light (New York, 1985), and
Gerard J. DeGroot, The Bomb: A Life (Cambridge, Mass., 2005), help us see how Americans, and eventually others, came to view the new weapon. Japanese attempts at building atomic bombs is documented in
Walter E. Grunden, Silent Weapons of World War II (Lawrence, Kans., 2005).
On China’s role in the war, see
Barbara Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China (New York, 1971). See also
Maochun Yu, OSS in China (New Haven, 1996), for a fascinating account of the sometimes cooperative but at other times conflicting relationship between U.S. and Chinese intelligence personnel in wartime China. The subtle ways in which the Asian war developed into an Asian Cold War is treated in such works as
Herbert Feis, Dilemma in China (Hamden, Conn., 1980);
Russell Buhite, Patrick J. Hurley and American Relations with China (Ithaca, 1973);
Kenneth Shewmaker, Americans and Chinese Communists (Ithaca, 1971);
Marc Gallicchio, The Cold War Begins in Asia (New York, 1988);
Tang Tsou, America’s Failure in China (Chicago, 1963);
Akira Iriye, The Cold War in Asia (New York, 1974);
Zheng Yangwen, Hong Liu, and Michael Szonyi, The Cold War in Asia (Leiden, 2010); and the essays contained in
Yonosuke Nagai and Akira Iriye, The Origins of the Cold War in Asia (Tokyo, 1977).
Frank Ninkovich, The Diplomacy of Ideas (New York, 1981), offers interesting observations on wartime American cultural diplomacy in China and elsewhere.
Because of the global character of the war, no part of the world escaped American attention and influence. Some flavor of the way in which the nation’s military presence became intertwined with the destiny of people everywhere may be gathered by reading such books as
Gary Hess, America Encounters India (Baltimore, 1971);
Martin W. Wilmington, The Middle East Supply Centre (Albany, 1971);
Arthur L. Funk, The Politics of TORCH (Lawrence, Kans., 1974), a study of the occupation of North Africa; and
Donald M. Dozer, Are We Good Neighbors? (Gainesville, Fla., 1959), which recounts the activities of American airmen in Brazil and other countries. Max Paul Friedman, Nazis and Good Neighbors (Cambridge, 2003), chronicles a fascinating story of how several thousand Germans were removed from Latin America and incarcerated in the United States after Pearl Harbor.
What did World War II mean to the American people? The question has been examined from various angles.
Paul Fussell, Wartime (New York, 1989), looks at the war from the common soldier’s perspective.
John Dower, War Without Mercy (New York, 1986), examines wartime stereotypes of the Japanese enemy.
Robert A. Divine, Second Chance (New York, 1971), is an excellent study of the “new internationalism.” American politics and society during the war are described in
John Morton Blum, V Was for Victory (New York, 1976);
Richard Polenberg, War and Society (Philadelphia, 1972);
Richard Darilek, A Loyal Opposition in Time of War (Westport, Conn., 1976); and
Martin Melosi, The Shadow of Pearl Harbor (College Station, Tex., 1977). How the war affected African Americans’ perceptions of world affairs is carefully examined by such books as
Marc Gallicchio, The African American Encounter with Japan and China (Chapel Hill, 2000), and
Nico Slate, Colored Cosmopolitanism (Cambridge, Mass., 2012).
On planning for the enemy’s surrender and occupation by the allies,
Harley Notter, Postwar Foreign Policy Preparation (Washington, D.C., 1949), provides essential raw material from the minutes of numerous State Department meetings. Regarding the treatment of defeated Germany, see
Tony Sharp, The Wartime Alliance and the Zonal Division of Germany (Oxford, 1975). On Japan,
Frederick Dunn, Peacemaking and the Settlement with Japan (Princeton, 1963), is useful. See also
Rudolf V. A. Janssens, “What Future For Japan?” (Amsterdam, 1995). Among the many excellent studies of the important Bretton Woods Conference are
Richard N. Gardner, Sterling-Dollar Diplomacy (New York, 1980), and
Alfred Eckes, A Search for Solvency (Austin, Tex., 1975). The creation of the United Nations has been receiving increasing attention from historians, suggesting that the conventional accounts that establish a connection between the ending of the war and the beginning of the Cold War are too facile and ignore many other important developments. See, among the more important studies,
Townsend Hoopes and Douglas Brinkley, FDR and the Creation of the U.N. (New Haven, 1997),
Elizabeth Borgwardt, A New Deal for the World (Cambridge, Mass., 2005), and
Paul Kennedy, The Parliament of Man (New York, 2006).