World War II left virtually no nation or corner of the world
untouched, dramatically transforming human life and society. It
prompted the unprecedented mobilization of whole societies and
witnessed a scale of state-sanctioned violence that staggers the
imagination, with more than 100 million casualties. The war
resulted in an almost complete collapse of any norms geared toward
avoiding the unnecessary loss of civilian life and shaped the
worldview and psyches of generations. The Oxford Handbook of World
War II broadens traditional narratives of the war and in the
process changes our understanding of this epic conflict. Organized
both chronologically and thematically and with particular attention
to the pre- and post-war eras, the Handbook revises and extends
existing scholarship. With chapters on the rise and fall of Nazi
Germany, the land war in Western Europe, the Battle of Britain, the
impact of war on the major combatants (Great Britain, France, the
United States, Japan, and China), the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor, the decision to use the atomic bomb in 1945, and the
cultural responses to the war, the chapters span much of the
twentieth century. They suggest areas of scholarly consensus,
identify interpretative clashes, and propose agendas for further
scholarly investigation, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary
inquiry. For example, the end of the Cold War had a profound impact
on the way World War II was understood. Many formerly closed
records in the former Soviet Union and China were opened to
scholars, facilitating a more complex view of the Soviet war effort
and suggesting that Stalin's army did not simply triumph by
overwhelming German forces with sheer numbers but mastered the
demands of a vast and logistically demanding front. In
conceptualizing the volume, editors Kurt Piehler and Jonathan Grant
also sought out contributions on lesser known aspects of the war,
such as the Bengal famine in India, the treatment of prisoners of
war, the role of Middle Eastern nations, and the activities of
non-governmental organizations in ameliorating suffering. Spanning
the rise and fall of the Versailles system to the postwar
reintegration of veterans and the eventual commemoration of the
conflict and its victims, The Oxford Handbook of World War II marks
a landmark contribution to the historical literature of war.
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