A reexamination of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy, this study challenges prevailing images of Chamberlain as a tragic hero--a man of peace, naively impressed by the dictators, who did his best under difficult circumstances to prepare his country for war. Instead, the author suggests that Chamberlain dominated his government and demonstrated an uncanny ability to manipulate those around him in support of his own personal vision of Britain's national interest. The failure to rearm to a level consistent with imperial obligations presented a formidable problem. The British Government admittedly had no good option available to it; however, Chamberlain was prepared to endure the humiliating consequences of appeasement, even if it meant peace at any price. He did so for personal, political, and prejudicial reasons. Ruggiero argues that, without Chamberlain, British rearmament would have taken a new direction, and such action might have prevented World War II. Relying primarily upon the Chamberlain Papers and Cabinet Records, this account details how and why Chamberlain adopted his chosen course of action, even after all support for his policies fell away as a result of the Munich Crisis. Most studies have concentrated directly on Chamberlain's appeasement policy, and this is the only one that analyzes his role in the rearmament program at length. It also sheds new light on appeasement by illustrating the connection between the policy and Britain's attempts to rearm.

Home Front argues that World War II was the most significant event in the history of modern North Carolina, an experience that dramatically improved the lives of ordinary citizens by transforming the rural state into an urban and industrialized society. Julian Pleasants uses oral history interviews, newspaper accounts, and other primary sources to explore the triumphs, hardships, and emotions of North Carolinians during this critical period. Residents of the state witnessed submarine warfare, German prisoners of war in the state, racial discrimination, civil rights progress, and new openings for women in society. With new military bases and increased demand for textiles, crops, lumber, furniture, tobacco, and military service, they saw better jobs, higher living standards, and a new and growing middle class due to these life-changing years.

War is chaos; an occupying force must bring order out of that chaos. The Allied Occupation of Italy is studied by examining crime, law and order in Sicily and southern Italy, where all forms of Allied and liberated Italian government were used and which also contained Italy's two historically most troublesome areas, Naples and Sicily. Effective society requires law and order to exist; this book examines the behaviour of a million Allied servicemen on the ordinary citizens of Italy, recently 'the enemy', from the nuisance of drunkenness to rape and murder. Many Italian law and order issues were caused by political conflict, land occupations and the poor availability of food and other essentials. The last led to unrest, discontent, a thriving black market, prostitution and a resurgence of crime. All these are examined, using original documents, as are police and Allied performance and the curious absence of the Mafia.

This study offers a fresh perspective on the 'comfort women' debates. It argues that the system can be understood as the mechanism of the intersectional oppression of gender, race, class and colonialism, while illuminating the importance of testimonies of victim-survivors as the site where women recover and gain their voices and agencies.

What was life like for ordinary Germans under Hitler? Hitler's Home Front paints a picture of life in Wurttemberg, a region in south-west Germany, during the rise to power and rule of the Nazis. It concentrates in particular on life in the countryside. Many Wurttembergers, while not actively opposing Hitler, carried on their normal lives before 1939, with their traditional loyalties, to region, village, church and family, balancing the claims of Nazism. The Nazis did not kill its own citizens (other than the Jews) in the way that Stalinist Russia did, and there were limits to the numbers and power of the Gestapo and to the reach of the Nazi state. Yet the region could not escape the catastrophic effect of the war, as conscription, labour shortages, migrant labour, bombing, hunger and defeat overwhelmed the lives of everyone.

Convinced before the onset of Operation "Barbarossa" in June 1941 of both the ease, with which the Red Army would be defeated and the likelihood that the Soviet Union would collapse, the Nazi regime envisaged a radical and far-reaching occupation policy which would result in the political, economic and racial reorganization of the occupied Soviet territories and bring about the deaths of 'x million people' through a conscious policy of starvation. This study traces the step-by-step development of high-level planning for the occupation policy in the Soviet territories over a twelve-month period and establishes the extent to which the various political and economic plans were compatible.

A graduate of the Universities of Huddersfield and Sheffield in the UK, Alex J. Kay obtained his doctorate in Modern and Contemporary History in 2005 from Berlin's Humboldt University, where he has also given courses on early modern British history. Based in Berlin, he is currently working on a new book on anti-Semitism in late Weimar parliamentary politics.

A magisterial history of the greatest and most terrible event in history, from one of the finest historians of the Second World War. A book which shows the impact of war upon hundreds of millions of people around the world- soldiers, sailors and airmen; housewives, farm workers and children.. Reflecting Max Hastings's thirty-five years of research on World War II, All Hell Let Loose describes the course of events, but focuses chiefly upon human experience, which varied immensely from campaign to campaign, continent to continent. The author emphasises the Russian front, where more than 90% of all German soldiers who perished met their fate. He argues that, while Hitler's army often fought its battles brilliantly well, the Nazis conducted their war effort with 'stunning incompetence'. He suggests that the Royal Navy and US Navy were their countries' outstanding fighting services, while the industrial contribution of the United States was much more important to allied victory than that of the US Army. The book ranges across a vast canvas, from the agony of Poland amid the September 1939 Nazi invasion, to the 1943 Bengal famine, in which at least a million people died under British rule- and British neglect. Among many vignettes, there are the RAF's legendary raid on the Ruhr dams, the horrors of Arctic convoys, desert tank combat, jungle clashes. Some of Hastings's insights and judgements will surprise students of the conflict, while there are vivid descriptions of the tragedies and triumphs of a host of ordinary people, in uniform and out of it. 'The cliche is profoundly true', he says. 'The world between 1939 and 1945 saw some human beings plumb the depths of baseness, while others scaled the heights of courage and nobility'. This is 'everyman's story', an attempt to answer the question: 'What was the Second World War like ?', and also an overview of the big picture. Max Hastings employs the technique which has made many of his previous books best-sellers, combining top-down analysis and bottom-up testimony to explore the meaning of this vast conflict both for its participants and for posterity.

With the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War looming, this new edition of the Wartime Scrapbook revives memories of this evocative time in Britain's history. Life on the home front revolved around rationing, blackouts, and air raid precautions, bringing out that British spirit - humour coupled with making-do and determination. Poster propaganda kept the population digging for victory during the years of the Home Guard, Women's Land Army and austerity with dried eggs. Drawn from Robert Opie's unrivalled collection, this new edition of The Wartime Scrapbook profusely illustrates a unique period in history - the song sheets, magazine covers, comic postcards, fashion and food, games, propaganda posters and a wealth of wartime ephemera whose very survival is remarkable.

The author's WWII experiences were unique, sometimes interesting and often humorous. These experiences were unique because his outfit was the only one in the Army involved in D-day assaults, on their soil, against all four nations we fought in WWII.

Intellectual debates surrounding modernity, modernism, and fascism continue to be active and hotly contested. In this ambitious book, renowned expert on fascism Roger Griffin analyzes Western modernity and the regimes of Mussolini and Hitler and offers a pioneering new interpretation of the links between these apparently contradictory phenomena.
Using a wealth of examples, Griffin describes how modernism's roots lay in part in the fundamental human need to perceive a transcendent meaning and purpose to life--and to restore this purpose in times of experienced decay and social breakdown. This sense of revolution and rebirth provided the context in which fascism sought a new world based on the health and strength of the nation or race.
"Modernism and Fascism" is an original and fascinating synthesis of data and ideas which will be of interest to art and intellectual historians, specialists in the study of modernity and modernism, and experts in fascist studies. It also offers stimulating new insights to all those concerned with the many contemporary movements (e.g. Al-Qaeda, Christian fundamentalists) prepared to fight for their belief in the transcendental meaning of life against the inroads of an increasingly globalized materialism. This is a book which promises to have a resonance far beyond the already broad academic parameters of the project, and will inspire a new wave of scholarly interest in modernity.

James Crossland's work traces the history of the International Committee of the Red Cross' struggle to bring humanitarianism to the Second World War, by focusing on its tumultuous relationship with one of the conflict's key belligerents and masters of the blockade of the Third Reich, Great Britain.

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.

The robbery and restitution of Jewish property are two inextricably linked social processes. It is not possible to understand the lawsuits and international agreements on the restoration of Jewish property of the late 1990s without examining what was robbed and by whom. In this volume distinguished historians first outline the mechanisms and scope of the European-wide program of plunder and then assess the effectiveness and historical implications of post-war restitution efforts. Everywhere the solution of legal and material problems was intertwined with changing national myths about the war and conflicting interpretations of justice. Even those countries that pursued extensive restitution programs using rigorous legal means were unable to compensate or fully comprehend the scale of Jewish loss. Especially in Eastern Europe, it was not until the collapse of communism that the concept of restoring some Jewish property rights even became a viable option. Integrating the abundance of new research on the material effects of the Holocaust and its aftermath, this comparative perspective examines the developments in Germany, Poland, Italy, France, Belgium, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

Cutting-edge case studies examine the partisan and anti-partisan warfare which broke out across German-occupied eastern Europe during World War Two, showing how it was shaped in varied ways by factors including fighting power, political and economic structures, ideological and psychological influences, and the attitude of the wider population.

The Normandy landings of 6 June 1944, across five sectors of the French coast - Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword - constituted the largest amphibious invasion in history. This study analyses in depth the preparations and implementation of the D-Day landing on Gold Beach by XXX Corps. Historians have tended to dismiss the landing on Gold Beach as straightforward but the evidence points to a different reality. Armour supported the infantry landing and prior bombing was intended to weaken German defences; however, the bulk of the bombing landed too far inland, and many craft foundered in difficult conditions at sea. It was the tenacity of the assault units and the flexibility of the follow up units which enabled the Gold landing to secure the right flank of the British Army in Normandy. Using detailed primary evidence from The National Archives and the Imperial War Museum, this volume provides a substantial assessment of the background to the landing on Gold, and analyses the events of D-Day in the wider context of the Normandy Campaign.

Operation Market Garden was Major Digby Tatham Warter's first action. As the OC of 'A' Company, 2 Para, he led the advance to the Arnhem road bridge, brushing aside German resistance to reach the objective. Over the course of the next four days, Digby - a well-known eccentric - enhanced his reputation further by displaying solid leadership and a fearlessness that left everyone who witnesses it in awe. Picking up an umbrella and bowler hat from one of the houses, Tatham Warter strolled around the perimeter oblivious to shot and shell, instilling confidence in his men and inspiring them to battle on in the face of overwhelming odds. Wounded and captured at the battle's end, Digby escaped and linked up with the Dutch Resistance. For weeks he strutted around the area disguised as a deaf and dumb Dutchman to fool the Germans. He collected over hundred paratroopers ('evaders') and forged a plan to lead them through enemy lines to safety. His post-war years are just as exciting. This is his story.

'That nickname . . .' '"Little bird." It wasn't mine. I found out later he gave it to every little girl that came in to be injected. "Little Bird" didn't mean anything. It was a trick. There were thousands of "little birds", just like me, all thinking they were the only one.' As a reporter, Jacques Peretti has spent his life investigating important stories. But there was one story, heard in scattered fragments throughout his childhood, that he never thought to investigate. The story of how his mother survived Auschwitz. In the few last months of the Second World War, thirteen-year-old Alina Peretti, along with her mother and sister, was one of thirteen thousand non-Jewish Poles sent to Auschwitz. Her experiences there cast a shadow over the rest of her life. Now ninety, Alina has been diagnosed with dementia. Together, mother and son begin a race against time to record her memories and preserve her family's story. Along the way, Jacques learns long-hidden secrets about his mother's family. He gains an understanding of his mother through retracing her past, learning more about the woman who would never let him call her 'Mum'.