War Aims In The Second World War

This introduction to the war aims of the key belligerents in World War II, including Germany, Britain, France, Italy, the Soviet Union, Japan and the USA, covers issues such as ideological aims, territorial expansion, national liberation or unification, commercial and colonial gain.

This is the first study of the aims that motivated the major powers - the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, Germany and Japan - to fight in the Second World War. The book shows, in a way that has not previously been attempted, how some war aims were constants that were unlikely to be abandoned except as a result of total defeat while others arose and sometimes declined as a result of the fortunes of war. Fresh light is shed on the wartime transition of the United States and the Soviet Union to superpower status, while the author shows that consistency is most evident in Great Britain, content with the international prewar status quo, and Nazi Germany, intent from the first on destroying it and replacing it with a new order in which all liberal and civilised values would be annihilated.Based largely on published sources, including published documentary material, the aim is to ensure accessibility for a range of readers. The level at which it is pitched, the synthesis of a broad range of material, its breadth of coverage and the comparative element will make this an ideal text for students studying the Second World War.

This professor's great work is possibly the most important book of any sort, probably the most important historical book, certainly the most controversial book to come out of Germany since the war. It had already forced the revision of widely held views in Germany's responsibility for beginning and continuing World War 1, and of supposed divergence of aim between business and the military on one side and labor and intellectuals on the other.

This introduction to the war aims of the key belligerents in World War II, including Germany, Britain, France, Italy, the Soviet Union, Japan and the USA, covers issues such as ideological aims, territorial expansion, national liberation or unification, commercial and colonial gain.

A masterful and comprehensive chronicle of World War II, by internationally bestselling historian Antony Beevor. Over the past two decades, Antony Beevor has established himself as one of the world's premier historians of WWII. His multi-award winning books have included Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin 1945. Now, in his newest and most ambitious book, he turns his focus to one of the bloodiest and most tragic events of the twentieth century, the Second World War. In this searing narrative that takes us from Hitler's invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939 to V-J day on August 14, 1945 and the war's aftermath, Beevor describes the conflict and its global reach -- one that included every major power. The result is a dramatic and breathtaking single-volume history that provides a remarkably intimate account of the war that, more than any other, still commands attention and an audience. Thrillingly written and brilliantly researched, Beevor's grand and provocative account is destined to become the definitive work on this complex, tragic, and endlessly fascinating period in world history, and confirms once more that he is a military historian of the first rank.

What did Hitler really want to achieve: world domination. In the early twenties, Hitler was working on this plan and from 1933 on, was working to make it a reality. During 1940 and 1941, he believed he was close to winning the war. This book not only examines Nazi imperial architecture, armament, and plans to regain colonies but also reveals what Hitler said in moments of truth. The author presents many new sources and information, including Hitler’s little known intention to attack New York City with long-range bombers in the days of Pearl Harbor.

Victor Rothwell examines the origins of World War II, from the flawed peace settlement in 1919 to the start of the true world war at Pearl Harbor in 1941. He asks many important questions. Why did the cause of peace advance in the 1920s, only to be stopped in its tracks and threatened with reversal by the Great Depression?; what was the nature of Nazi thinking about war, foreign policy, and the policy of appeasement that sought to accommodate the Third Reich without again going to war? He also examines the events in the Far East at the time, and draws a contrast between the role of the US and the Far East throughout the 1930s. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

From the Back Cover: From the moment of its publication in 1961, A.J.P. Taylor's seminal work caused a storm of praise and controversy, and it has since been recognized as a classic: the first book ever to examine exclusively and in depth the causes of the Second World War and to apportion the responsibility among Allies and Germans alike. With crisp, clear prose and brilliant analysis, Taylor established that the war, "far from being premeditated, was a mistake, the result on both sides of diplomatic blunders." He argued that Hitler was more an opportunist than an ideologue who owed his successes to Great Britain's and France's tacking between resistance and appeasement, and to an American policy akin to "the significant episode of the dog in the night, to which Sherlock Holmes once drew attention. When Watson objected: 'But the dog did nothing in the night," Holmes answered: 'That was the significant episode.' "The Times Literary Supplement called The Origins of the Second World War "simple, devastating, superlatively readable, and deeply disturbing," and it remains so now-a groundbreaking book of enduring importance.

Nearly fourteen million people died during the First World War. But why, and for what reason? Already many contemporaries saw the Great War as a "pointless carnage" (Pope Benedict XV, 1917). Was there a point, at least in the eyes of the political and military decision makers? How did they justify the losses, and why did they not try to end the war earlier? In this volume twelve international specialists analyses and compares the hopes and expectations of the political and military leaders of the main belligerent countries and of their respective societies. It shows that the war aims adopted during the First World War were not, for the most part, the cause of the conflict, but a reaction to it, an attempt to give the tragedy a purpose - even if the consequence was to oblige the belligerents to go on fighting until victory. The volume tries to explain why - and for what - the contemporaries thought that they had to fight the Great War.

In her analysis of the reasons for the outbreak of the Second World War, one of the most controversial of all historical topics, Ruth Henig: · considers the long-term factors that led to the war · assess the effect of British appeasement policies · explains the significance of American isolation · examines the ambitions of Italy, Japan and Russia.