Did the bombing of Japan's cities culminating in the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki hasten the end of World War II? Edwin Hoyt, World War II scholar and author, argues against the U. S. justification of the bombing. In his new book, Inferno, Hoyt shows how the U. S. bombed without discrimination, hurting Japanese civilians far more than the Japanese military. Hoyt accuses Major General Curtis LeMay, the Air Force leader who helped plan the destruction of Dresden, of committing a war crime through his plan to burn Japan's major cities to the ground. The firebombing raids conducted by LeMay's squadrons caused far more death than the two atomic blasts. Throughout cities built largely from wood, incendiary bombs started raging fires that consumed houses and killed hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. The survivors of the raids recount their stories in Inferno, remembering their terror as they fled to shelter through burning cities, escaping smoke, panicked crowds, and collapsing buildings. Hoyt's descriptions of the widespread death and destruction of Japan depicts a war machine operating without restraint. Inferno offers a provocative look at what may have been America's most brutal policy during the years of World War II.

H. W. Koch, himself a former Hitler Youth brings a unique sensitivity and perspective to the history of one of the most fascinating vehicles for Nazi thought and propaganda. He traces the Hitler Youth movement from its antecedents in nineteenth-century German romanticism and pre-1914 youth culture, through the World War I radicaliztion of German youth, to its ultimate exploitation by the Nazi party.

Examines a controversial period of German history - from the Weimar Republic to Nazi Germany.

Examining the differences and similarities between the two regimes between 1919 and 1945, Panikos Panayi offers a thorough introduction to a very critical and popular period of modern history and this work contains research from some of the leading historians of Germany. It is comprehensive in scope, exploring the economic, social, political and diplomatic history of Germany during the period after the First World War and the Third Reich.

Illustrated with detailed artworks of World War II-era German aircraft and their markings with exhaustive captions and specifications, Luftwaffe Squadrons 1939-45: Identification Guide is the definitive study of the equipment and organisation of the Luftwaffe's combat units. Organised by theatre of operations and the many campaigns fought by the Luftwaffe, the book describes in depth the various units that were fighting on the front at key points in the war and describes the models of aircraft in service with each unit along with their individual and squadron markings. With information boxes accompanying the full-colour artworks, Luftwaffe Squadrons 1939-45 is an essential reference guide for modellers and any enthusiast with an interest in the aircraft of the German war machine.

December 7, 1941, is one of those days engraved in the twentieth century memory. It is a landmark day, along with Armistice Day in 1918, the stock market crash in 1929, and the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. This book is about ordinary people on that extraordinary day. To a large extent, this book is by the people who remember that day because they have been permitted to tell their own stories in their own words. The book chooses representative stories from the entire country and concentrates on the stories of two destroyers, the USS Ward and the USS Henley, which were involved in the attack.

This book, like all good history, reminds us of the changes that have come since World War II. There has been an overall change in attitudes, especially with the dramatic changes in Europe and the economic dominance of Japan. Much of what we see now relates directly to World War II and the way America and its allies conducted themselves when the war ended. It was the last war which had virtually no gray areas--Germany, Japan, and Italy were the bad guys, and America and its allies were the good guys. It truly was that simple for us before and during World War II. Nothing has been that simple since the fateful day that brought America into the most catastrophic conflict in history.

From the late nineteenth century through the post-Holocaust era, the world was divided between countries that tried to expel their Jewish populations and those that refused to let them in. The plight of these traumatized refugees inspired numerous proposals for Jewish states. Jews and Christians, authors and adventurers, politicians and playwrights, and rabbis and revolutionaries all worked to carve out autonomous Jewish territories in remote and often hostile locations across the globe. The would-be founding fathers of these imaginary Zions dispatched scientific expeditions to far-flung regions and filed reports on the dream states they planned to create. But only Israel emerged from dream to reality. Israel's successful foundation has long obscured the fact that eminent Jewish figures, including Zionism's prophet, Theodor Herzl, seriously considered establishing enclaves beyond the Middle East. In the Shadow of Zion brings to life the amazing true stories of six exotic visions of a Jewish national home outside of the biblical land of Israel. It is the only book to detail the connections between these schemes, which in turn explain the trajectory of modern Zionism. A gripping narrative drawn from archives the world over, In the Shadow of Zion recovers the mostly forgotten history of the Jewish territorialist movement, and the stories of the fascinating but now obscure figures who championed it. Provocative, thoroughly researched, and written to appeal to a broad audience, In the Shadow of Zion offers a timely perspective on Jewish power and powerlessness. Visit the author's website: http://www.adamrovner.com/.

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"Besides writing an important history, Horne adds to our understanding of the evolution of white supremacy."
--"Political Affairs"

"This is a challenging story, known to specialists but worth retelling from a fresh perspecctive."
--" Library Journal"

"New studies of World War II and the Pacific War should be conducted with an aim to learn from the forgotten people- the 'colored' people- in Asia and the Pacific. Horne's book provides a valuable suggestion towards that lesson."
--"Diplomatic History"

"The strength of this book is that it leaves no claim unsubstantiated, and that it does not paint a picture in black and white. Horne does note vade the many contradictions that race inserted into the complexities of the war, but tackles them with analytic clarity."
--"Asia Views"

aHorneas analysis of the race problem and its role in World War II is both brilliant and convincing.a --Virginia Review of Asian Studies

aThis ambitious, transnational study makes a valuable and proactive contribution to the growing literature devoted to the racial aspects of the Pacific War.a
--Pacific Historical Review

aThis book is full of interesting information like this about deep and wide repercussions of Japanas racial stance...a
--Journal of Imperial Commonwealth History.

Japan's lightning march across Asia during World War II was swift and brutal. Nation after nation fell to Japanese soldiers. How were the Japanese able to justify their occupation of so many Asian nations? And how did they find supporters in countries they subdued and exploited? Race War! delves into submerged and forgotten history toreveal how European racism and colonialism were deftly exploited by the Japanese to create allies among formerly colonized people of color. Through interviews and original archival research on five continents, Gerald Horne shows how race played a key--and hitherto ignored--role in each phase of the war.

During the conflict, the Japanese turned white racism on its head portraying the war as a defense against white domination in the Pacific. We learn about the "reverse racial hierarchy" practiced by the Japanese internment camps, in which whites were placed at the bottom of the totem pole, under the supervision of Chinese, Korean, and Indian guards--an embarrassing example of racial payback that was downplayed by the defeated Japanese and the humiliated Europeans and Euro-Americans.

Focusing on the microcosmic example of Hong Kong but ranging from colonial India to New Zealand and the shores of the U.S., Gerald Horne "radically retells" the story of the war. From racist U.S. propaganda to Black Nationalist open support of Imperial Japan, information about the effect of race on U.S. and British policy is revealed for the first time. This revisionist account of the war draws connections between General Tojo, Malaysian freedom fighters, and Elijah Muhammed of the Nation of Islam and shows how white racism encouraged and enabled Japanese imperialism. In sum, Horne demonstrates that the retreat of white supremacy was not only driven by the impact of the Cold War and the energized militancy of Africans and African-Americans but by the impact of the Pacific War as well, as a chastened U.S. and U.K. moved vigorously after this conflict to remove the conditions that made Japan's successpossible.

British Literature of the Blitz interrogates the patriotic, utopian ideal of the People's War by analyzing conflicted representations of class and gender in literature and film. Its subtitle - Fighting the People's War - describes how British citizens both united to fight Nazi Germany and questioned the nationalist ideology binding them together.

The Second World War was a period which witnessed struggles for the definition of appropriate feminine identities and behavior. However, of the are myths and silences surrounding women's contribution to the war, the heroic myths of the War are male. Women's own accounts show how they consciously negotiated their lives through that fractured gendered time and space.War conditions threatened existing gendered social relations and so, throughout the war, 'woman' was the target of regulation and surveillance. Women's presence in the public spheres of industry, the services and other masculine spaces led to their sexuality becoming a contentious issue. Women's morals were increasingly related to Brtish male morale.How far the disruptions of war time challenge perceptions of feminine behavior remains controversial. Gender relations, feminine identity and the discourses constructing sexuality could have been threatened as the gendered nature of the public and private spheres and time and space were thorown into relief during the war.

During World War II, General Dwight D. Eisenhower became convinced that the era of separate land, sea, and air operations was over and that future military operations would involve all three elements acting in concert. He foresaw that, once peace had been restored, the waste and duplication of effort which characterized America's military operations during the war would not be tolerated by an economy-minded Congress. A fiscal conservative, Eisenhower saw national security as dependent upon maintaining a healthy economy and a strong military. His goal, therefore, was the achievement of an efficient, properly balanced military establishment within the context of a healthy economy through the unification of the services into a single Cabinet level department.

As Army Chief of Staff, adviser to Secretaries of National Defense James Forrestal and Louis Johnson, and then as president, Eisenhower was a leader in the effort to achieve unification. The final result of these efforts, the Military Reorganization Act of 1958, did not encompass all of the changes that Eisenhower originally sought. However, he had been instrumental in transforming the unorganized military establishment of pre-war America into a highly centralized organization led by a powerful secretary of defense. This structure would remain unchanged for twenty-eight years.

Jean Moulin is a universally recognized French hero, celebrated as the delegate of General de Gaulle to Nazi-occupied France in 1942-43 and founder of the National Resistance Council in May 1943. He is known for defiance of the German invaders in June 1940 and for his death in the hands of Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie in July 1943. This book is the first fully-documented account in English of his republican background, his resistance activities, and his death and reputation.

This is the first book (in either English or French) to offer readers an overview of women's experience of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath in France. It examines objectively the part that women played in both collaboration and resistance, synthesising much recent scholarship on the subject in French and English, and drawing on the author's own extensive research (including oral testimony) in Toulouse, Paris, and West Brittany. The findings are complex, and the immensely varied testimony challenges easy generalisation. This will be relevant for courses on French studies, French and European history and Women's studies.

"You are one of the unremembered heroes of the war," wrote Lord Beaverbrook to Archibald Sinclair in 1961, no man acted with more balance, with more judgement or greater restraint than yourself. Sinclair, a wealthy landowner from the north of Scotland, was Liberal Party leader from 1935 to 1945 and Air Minister throughout Winston Churchill's ministry during the Second World War. He played a crucial role in both the Battle of Britain and in the strategic bombing of Germany. During his career, he locked horns with Churchill (a lifelong friend and companion), Beaverbrook, Hugh Dowding and Bomber Harris. Many wished to destroy him. His political survival during the height of World War II is testimony to his remarkable skill and resilience.

A consummately talented politician, Sinclair played an important part in the major controversies of mid-century: appeasement, unemployment policy, the Abdication, rearmament and war. His integrity and sense of honor set him apart in an age of opportunism and betrayal. A devout believer in liberalism, Sinclair carried his party through its dark age, modernizing the demoralized and disintegrating 19th-century relic. This biography contains much previously unpublished correspondence between Churchill and Sinclair (including especially striking letters dating from the First World War) and provides revealing glimpses into the lives of many other important figures of that day. An absorbing portrait of a private and a passionate man, "Liberal Crusader" is must reading from anyone interested in the history of World War II, in the legacy of Winston Churchill, and in British history and politics in general.

Emilio, viaja con su madre y hermano desde Italia para encontrarse con su padre en Eritrea, una de las colonias africanas de Italia desde el siglo XIX. All, la joven familia comienza una vida extraordinaria, sin saber que pronto Mussolini le declarar la guerra a Francia e Inglaterra. El padre deja a su familia a cargo de Al, abnegado sirviente musulm n que los cuida hasta su repatriaci n. Cuando por fin llegan a Italia la madre y los hijos, Mussolini es encarcelado y se genera la infame guerra entre alemanes e ingleses.Por otro lado, Giovanni, un telegrafista de la marina italiana, escribe sus memorias, primero en el puerto de Massaua y luego a bordo de la nave de guerra Ramb II, la cual ser enviada a una misi n secreta en el Pac fico asi tico. sta es una historia (verdadera) vista desde "el lado de los que perdieron." Ni os, mujeres y hombres que, como t teres, ser n manipulados por los l deres de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Pero los personajes de esta novela deciden su destino: utilizar todo su ingenio y fortaleza para mantenerse unidos y sobrevivir.

In British Women Writers of World War II , Phyllis Lassner offers a challenging analysis of politicized literature in which such British women writers as Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, Stevie Smith and Storm Jameson debated the `justness' of World War II. Lassner questions prevailing approaches to women's war writing by exploring the complex range of pacifist and activist literary forms of women who redefined such pieties as patriotism and duty and heroism and victimization.

This edited volume provides the first fully comprehensive evaluation of Libya since the Qadhafi coup in 1969. Throughout the different chapters the authors explore the rise of the military in Libya, the impact of its self-styled revolution on Libyan society and economy.

The Pacific story captures the complexity and the furor of islands riddled with Japanese well dug in a landscape of hellish remembrance for our soldiers. The Pacific campaign...jungle fight put terror in the heart...young soldiers never forgot. Story recounts in the major campaigns and battles that relates the outcome of one another on Leyte, Luzon in the Philippines. How advanced-base hospitals on the Pacific islands formed a critical link in the chain of evacuation from battle sites in World War II. The European story tells of warriors that in face of constant danger fought with a fighting spirit that overcame the best Hitler's soldiers could throw against them. Some of World War II's untold campaigns were fought and won by the Seventh Army's fight from Sicily to Austria led first by flamboyant Gen. Patton to the steady Gen. Patch. On both war-fronts, soldiers fought where the advantages had been manifold, but the different branches of the arm services worked together smoothly and maintained a command that worked to the finish as true patriots on the behalf of mov pa ae--Love of One's Country.

The Sunday Times bestselling author of Dresden on the most important city of the 20th century.

An almighty storm hit Berlin in the last days of April 1945. Enveloped by the unstoppable force of East and West, explosive shells pounded buildings while the inhabitants of a once glorious city sheltered in dark cellars - just like their Fuhrer in his bunker. The Battle of Berlin was a key moment in history; marking the end of a deathly regime, the defeated city was ripped in two by the competing superpowers of the Cold War.

In Berlin, bestselling historian Sinclair McKay draws on never-before-seen first-person accounts to paint a picture of a city ravaged by ideology, war and grief. Yet to fully grasp the fall of Berlin, it is crucial to also explore in detail the years beforehand and to trace the city being rebuilt, as two cities, in the aftermath. From the passionate and austere Communists of 1919 to the sleek and serious industrialists of 1949, and from the glitter of innovation from artists such as George Grosz to the desperate border crossings for three decades from 1961, this is a story of a city that shaped an entire century, as seen through the eyes not of its rulers, but of those who walked its streets.

On the outbreak of WWII Frank was appointed governor general of Poland. Heinrich Himmler was responsible for the extermination camps and Frank claimed he did not become aware of the mass killings until late in the war. Frank was captured in May 1945 and was accused of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial. He said at his trial: "I myself have never installed an extermination camp for Jews, or promoted the existence of such camps; but if Adolf Hitler personally has laid that dreadful responsibility on his people, then it is mine too, for we have fought against Jewry for years; and we have indulged in the most horrible utterances." Hans Frank was found guilty and executed on October 1, 1946. This scholarly study from Martyn Housden examines Frank's career and complex character to shed light upon the Lebensraum project in the East and the carrying out of the Final Solution.