THE SECOND WORLD WAR

This survey examines the causes, course, and conclusion of the Second World War. Its framework is formed by the military confrontations that determined these causes, course, and conclusion. Its focus is on the political and policy decisions national leaders took, and the institutional setting in which they took those decisions, not on such trivial details as the effective penetration range of an 88mm shell against a Type B's frontal armor.

Those military confrontations themselves, moreover, constitute only the barest portion of the war. Germany occupied much of Europe for over three years. What Germany attempted to achieve, and how those in the occupied territories reacted to that attempt, form stories of critical importance to understanding the war. Not least of those stories was the Holocaust.

Course Schedule and Assignments

I. ORIGINS
1. Hitler's Program
2. Why the West Slept
3. Poland's Fate
4. Russia Determines; the West Dithers
5. DISCUSSION: A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War [D741.T238]; Gordon
Martel, ed., The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered (2nd edition) [D741.O7451999]


II. THE TRIUMPHANT AXIS
1. The Collapse of France
2. The Two Battles of Britain
3. The Vital Periphery
4. Barbarossa


III. THE PACIFIC AND THE PIVOT
1. America Astir
2. Japan's Agenda
3. The Way Out of China (Leads to Pearl)
4. Forging the Grand Alliance
5. DISCUSSION: Geoffrey Megargee, War of Annihilation [D764.M385 2006]; Rodric Braithwaite, Moscow 1941 [D764.3 .M6 B73 2006]


IV. TURNING POINTS AND TERROR
1. The Atlantic Cauldron
2. Mediterranean Stew
3. Russia's Road Back
4. Reaching the Final Solution
5. "This is what it was like . . ."
6. DISCUSSION: Tami Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare [UG705.67 B54 2002]


V. FIGHTING TO A FINISH
1. OVERLORD: The French Connection
2. Poland's Agony
3. Testing the Grand Alliance: Yalta
4. The Death Rattles of Japan
5. DISCUSSION: Shohei Ooka, Fires on the Plain [PL835.O5 N63 2001] and George Neill, Infantry Soldier [D756.5 A7 N45 2000]