History 3071/5071
Summer, 2006
World War II Mr. Bowling
Books:
Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms; A History of
World War II (Cambridge, 2nd ed., 2005).
Ronald Story, Concise Historical Atlas of World War II
(New York, 2005).
Robert Crisp, Brazen Chariots; An Account of Tank Warfare
in the Western Desert, November-December 1941
(New York, 2005).
Greg Robinson, By Order of the President; FDR & the
Internment of Japanese Americans (Cambridge, Mass.,
2001).
Max Hastings, Overlord; D-Day & the Battle for Normandy
(New York, 1985).
1. Attendance.
2. Readings.
3. Participation.
4. Oral reports (longer for graduate students), for which some
library research time will be provided.
5. Successful completion of two examinations.
General
Statement of Purpose and Plan of Study:
To many,
especially of the older generation, the Second World War
is referred to simply
as "the war," "the Big One." At the center of the conflict were its principal
perpetrators: Germany under Hitler and
the Japanese Empire, versus the principal Allies: the United States under Roosevelt, the British Empire under Churchill, and the Soviet Union under Stalin.
The war had such an impact that the next half-century became known as
the "postwar era." Only now,
with the end of the Cold War, have we really begun to emerge from its shadow.
Topically, we shall follow proceed as follows:
background,
beginning with the settlement of the Great War
and
the problems thereby created;
the
accession to power of the expansionist dictators of
Germany
and Japan;
the
outbreak of actual conflict in the Far East and Europe;
the course of the war itself, with greatest attention to the
the outcome.