Access books pertaining to World War II in book stacks by browsing Call Numbers D 619 - 843.
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Call no. DS889.8 B59 2001
In this groundbreaking biography of the Japanese emperor Hirohito, Herbert P. Bix offers the first complete, unvarnished look at the enigmatic leader whose sixty-three-year reign ushered Japan into the modern world. Never before has the full life of this controversial figure been revealed with such clarity and vividness. Bix shows what it was like to be trained from birth for a lone position at the apex of the nation's political hierarchy and as a revered symbol of divine status. Influenced by an unusual combination of the Japanese imperial tradition and a modern scientific worldview, the young emperor gradually evolves into his preeminent role, aligning himself with the growing ultra-nationalist movement, perpetuating a cult of religious emperor worship, resisting attempts to curb his power, and all the while burnishing his image as a reluctant, passive monarch. Here we see Hirohito as he truly was: a man of strong will and real authority.
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Call no. D810.A7 R675 2022
A classic now back in print and enriched with new imagery, James J. Rorimer's riveting first-hand account takes readers on a treasure hunt as he follows the Allied troops across France and Germany to save Nazi-stolen masterpieces of art. James J. Rorimer, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, became a leading figure in the art recovery unit known as the Monuments Men, an elite group embedded in the US Army, who risked their lives during World War II to save Europe's greatest artworks from Hitler's grasp. In the film Monuments Men, Matt Damon's character is based on Rorimer as he embarks on the world's most dangerous real-life hunt for stolen artworks with the goal of locating, seizing, and returning the works to their original holders, including museums and private collectors. This new edition of a book first published in 1950 includes the original illustrations from the first edition plus a wealth of new imagery and ephemera uncovered during extensive research, including WWII photographs, many taken by Rorimer himself, that are accompanied by gorgeous reproductions of many of the Old Masters Rorimer helped save by artists such as Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci, Bruegel, Vermeer, Goya, Velazquez, and van Eyck. Maps created especially for this volume, and other facts about WWII history and geography, add a new dimension to a remarkable story of courage, perseverance, and ultimately, triumph.
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Call no. DS889 .D69 2000
Drawing on a vast range of Japanese sources and illustrated with dozens of astonishing documentary photographs, Embracing Defeat is the fullest and most important history of the more than six years of American occupation, which affected every level of Japanese society, often in ways, neither side could anticipate. Dower, whom Stephen E. Ambrose has called "America's foremost historian of the Second World War in the Pacific," gives us the rich and turbulent interplay between West and East, the victor and the vanquished, in a way never before attempted, from top-level manipulations concerning the fate of Emperor Hirohito to the hopes and fears of men and women in every walk of life. Already regarded as the benchmark in its field, Embracing Defeat is a work of colossal scholarship and history of the very first order.
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Call no. E814 .B73 2016
"From master storyteller and historian H.W. Brands, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize comes the riveting story of how President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur squared off to decide America's future in the aftermath of World War II. At the height of the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman committed a gaffe that sent shock waves around the world.
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Call no. E840 .E34 2016
The origins of the Cold War (1917-1945) -- Containment and the Soviet expansion (1945-1950) -- The hot wars of the Cold War (1950-1973) -- Détente (1969-1980) -- Winning the Cold War (1981-1991) -- Conclusion: lessons from the Cold War.
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Call no. DS126.4 .H455 2022
Israel's Moment is a major new account of how a Jewish state came to be forged in the shadow of World War Two and the Holocaust and the onset of the Cold War. Drawing on new research in government, public and private archives, Jeffrey Herf exposes the political realities that underpinned support for and opposition to Zionist aspirations in Palestine. In an unprecedented international account, he explores the role of the United States, the Arab States, the Palestine Arabs, the Zionists, and key European governments from Britain and France to the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. His findings reveal a spectrum of support and opposition that stood in sharp contrast to the political coordinates that emerged during the Cold War, shedding new light on how and why the state of Israel was established in 1948 and challenging conventional associations of left and right, imperialism and anti-imperialism, and racism and anti-racism.
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Call no. QC773.3.U5 A845 2009
Drawing on the latest research on the atomic bomb and its history, the contributors to this provocative collection of eighteen essays set out to answer two key questions: First, how did the atomic bomb, a product of unprecedented technological innovation, rapid industrial-scale manufacturing, and unparalleled military deployment, shape U.S. foreign policy, the communities of workers who produced it, and society as a whole? And second, how has American society's perception of the bomb as a means of military deterrence in the Cold War era evolved under the influence of mass media, scientists, public intellectuals, and even the entertainment industry?
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Call no. PZ7.Z837 Boo 2007
Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors
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Call no. GV1785.B3 L48 2022
In Agent Josephine, bestselling author Damien Lewis uncovers this little-known history of the famous singer's life. During the war years, as a member of the French Nurse paratroopers--a cover for her spying work--Baker participated in numerous clandestine activities and emerged as a formidable spy. In turn, she was a hero of the three countries in whose name she served--the US, France, and Britain.
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Call no. PR6056.O45 E9 1978
His code name was “The Needle.” He was a German aristocrat of extraordinary intelligence—a master spy with a legacy of violence in his blood, and the object of the most desperate manhunt in history. . . .
But his fate lay in the hands of a young and vulnerable English woman, whose loyalty, if swayed, would assure his freedom—and win the war for the Nazis. . . .
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Call no. E748.C524 F67 2002
She held few government posts, yet she was a strong influence on the course of U.S.-Asian relations in the last half of the twentieth century. She earned the respect of and held the ear of presidents and cabinet members in a time before women were generally accepted in such circles.
The Chinese-born wife of General Claire Chennault of World War II Flying Tigers fame, Anna Chennault was a leader in America's informal relations with East Asia from 1950 to 1990. Informal diplomacy-exchanges between citizens of different nations outside of official institutional apparatus that seek to influence events or governmental attitudes-is an increasingly important avenue of international relations in the modern age.
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Call no. E744 .G69
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Call no. D810.S8 G597 2019
"The never-before-told story of one woman's heroism that changed the course of the Second World War. In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: "She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her." This spy was Virginia Hall, a young American woman--rejected from the foreign service because of her gender and her prosthetic leg--who talked her way into the spy organization dubbed Churchill's "ministry of ungentlemanly warfare," and, before the United States had even entered the war, became the first woman to deploy to occupied France. Virginia Hall was one of the greatest spies in American history, yet her story remains untold. Just as she did in Clementine, Sonia Purnell uncovers the captivating story of a powerful, influential, yet shockingly overlooked heroine of the Second World War. At a time when sending female secret agents into enemy territory was still strictly forbidden, Virginia Hall came to be known as the "Madonna of the Resistance," coordinating a network of spies to blow up bridges, report on German troop movements, arrange equipment drops for Resistance agents, and recruit and train guerilla fighters. Even as her face covered WANTED posters throughout Europe, Virginia refused order after order to evacuate. She finally escaped with her life in a grueling hike over the Pyrenees into Spain, her cover blown, and her associates all imprisoned or executed. But, adamant that she had "more lives to save," she dove back in as soon as she could, organizing forces to sabotage enemy lines and back up Allied forces landing on Normandy beaches. Told with Purnell's signature insight and novelistic panache, A Woman of No Importance is the breathtaking story of how one woman's fierce persistence helped win the war."
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Call no. D804.3 .M396 2012
This deeply researched and informative book traces the biographies of thirty "typical" perpetrators of the Holocaust—some well-known, some obscure—who survived World War II. Donald M. McKale reveals the shocking reality that the perpetrators were only rarely if ever, tried or punished for their crimes, and nearly all alleged their innocence in Germany's extermination of nearly six million European Jews during the war. He highlights the bitter contrasts between the comfortable postwar lives of many war criminals and the enduring suffering of their victims.
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Call no. D766.82 .A82 2003
The liberation of Europe and the destruction of the Third Reich is a story of courage and enduring triumph, of calamity and miscalculation. In this first volume of the Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson shows why no modern reader can understand the ultimate victory of the Allied powers without a grasp of the great drama that unfolded in North Africa in 1942 and 1943. That first year of the Allied war was a pivotal point in American history, the moment when the United States began to act like a great power.
Beginning with the daring amphibious invasion in November 1942, An Army at Dawn follows the American and British armies as they fight the French in Morocco and Algeria, and then take on the Germans and Italians in Tunisia. Battle by battle, an inexperienced and sometimes poorly led army gradually becomes a superb fighting force. Central to the tale is the extraordinary but fallible commanders who come to dominate the battlefield: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, Montgomery, and Rommel.
Brilliantly researched, rich with new material and vivid insights, Atkinson's narrative provides the definitive history of the war in North Africa.
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Call no. E743.5 .L49 2014
The shocking story of how America became one of the world's safest postwar havens for Nazis. Until recently, historians believed America gave asylum only to key Nazi scientists after World War II, along with some less famous perpetrators who managed to sneak in and who eventually were exposed by Nazi hunters. But the truth is much worse, and has been covered up for decades: the CIA and FBI brought thousands of perpetrators to America as possible assets against their new Cold War enemies. When the Justice Department finally investigated and learned the truth, the results were classified and buried. Using the dramatic story of one former perpetrator who settled in New Jersey, conned the CIA into hiring him, and begged for the agency's support when his wartime identity emerged, Eric Lichtblau tells the full, shocking story of how America became a refuge for hundreds of postwar Nazis.
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Call no. D734.T4 B35 2019
November 1943: World War II teetered in the balance. The Nazis controlled nearly all of the European continent. Japan dominated the Pacific. Allied successes at Sicily and Guadalcanal had gained modest ground but at an extraordinary cost. On the Eastern Front, the Soviets had already lost millions of lives. That same month in Tehran, with the fate of the world in question, the 'Big Three,' Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, secretly met for the first time to chart a strategy for defeating Hitler. Over three days, this trio, strange bedfellows united by their mutual responsibility as heads of the Allied powers, made essential decisions that would direct the final years of the war and its aftermath. Meanwhile, looming over the covert meeting was the possible threat of a Nazi assassination plot nicknamed 'Operation Long Jump,' heightening the already dramatic stakes.
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Call no. D805.J3 Z364 2010
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared; it was Lt. Louis Zamperini. Captured by the Japanese and driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor. Zamperini had a troubled youth, yet honed his athletic skills and made it all the way to the 1934 Olympics in Berlin. However, what lay before him was a physical gauntlet, unlike anything he had encountered before: thousands of miles of open ocean, a small raft, and no food or water. He spent forty-seven days adrift in the ocean before being rescued by the Japanese Navy and was held as a prisoner until the end of the war.
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Call no. E745.M37 R65 2019
The extraordinary career of George Catlett Marshall--America's most distinguished soldier-statesman since George Washington--whose selfless leadership and moral character influenced the course of two world wars and helped define the American century. Winston Churchill called him World War II's "organizer of victory." Harry Truman said he was "the greatest military man that this country ever produced." Today, in our era of failed leadership, few lives are more worthy of renewed examination than Marshall and his fifty years of loyal service to the defense of his nation and its values. Even as a young officer he was heralded as a genius, a reputation that grew when in WWI he planned and executed a nighttime movement of more than a half million troops from one battlefield to another that led to the armistice. Between the wars, he helped modernize combat training, and re-staffed the U.S. Army's officer corps with the men who would lead in the next decades. But as WWII loomed, it was the role of army chief of staff in which Marshall's intellect and backbone were put to the test, when his blind commitment to duty would run up against the realities of Washington politics. Long seen as a stoic, almost statuesque figure, he emerges in these pages as a man both remarkable and deeply human, thanks to newly discovered sources. Set against the backdrop of five major conflicts--two world wars, Palestine, Korea, and the Cold War--Marshall's education in military, diplomatic, and political power, replete with their nuances and ambiguities, runs parallel with America's emergence as a global superpower.
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Call no. E807 .D335 2017
While Robert Dallek's Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life will take a fresh look at the many compelling questions that have attracted all his biographers--how did a man who came from so privileged a background become the greatest presidential champion of the country's needy? How did someone who never won recognition for his intellect foster revolutionary changes in the country's economic and social institutions? How did Roosevelt work such a profound change in the country's foreign relations?--the focus of his book is on Roosevelt as a man dedicated to public affairs, a master politician who skillfully and cannily used the presidency to advance a remarkable national agenda.
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Call no. PS3558.E476 C3 1961
At the heart of Catch-22 resides the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes to save his skin from the horrible chances of war. His efforts are perfectly understandable because as he furiously scrambles, thousands of people he hasn't even met are trying to kill him. His problem is Colonel Cathcart, who keeps raising the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions that he is committed to flying, he is trapped by the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, the hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule from which the book takes its title: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes the necessary formal request to be relieved of such missions, the very act of making the request proves that he is sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.
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Call no. DS922.2 .O25 2014
Ever since Korea was first divided at the end of World War II, the tension between its northern and southern halves has riveted and threatened to embroil-the rest of the world. In this landmark history, now thoroughly revised and updated in conjunction with Korea expert Robert Carlin, veteran journalist Don Oberdorfer grippingly describes how historically homogenous people became locked in a perpetual struggle for supremacy-and how they might yet be reconciled.
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Call no. PR6056.O45 K4 1980
A brilliant and ruthless Nazi master agent is on the loose in Cairo. His mission is to send Rommel’s advancing army the secrets that will unlock the city’s doors. In all of Cairo, only two people can stop him. One is a down-on-his-luck English officer no one will listen to. The other is a vulnerable young Jewish girl. . . .
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Call no. PR6052.A46 E45 1984
Jim is separated from his parents in a world at war. To survive, he must find a strength greater than all the events that surround him.
Shanghai, 1941—a city aflame from the fateful torch of Pearl Harbor. In streets full of chaos and corpses, a young British boy searches in vain for his parents. Imprisoned in a Japanese concentration camp, he is witness to the fierce white flash of Nagasaki, as the bomb bellows the end of the war...and the dawn of a blighted world.
Ballard’s enduring novel of war and deprivation, internment camps and death marches, and starvation and survival is an honest coming-of-age tale set in a world thrown utterly out of joint.
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Call no. D810.W7 S77 2011
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Call no. DS135.N6 F7349713 2013
Draws on interviews with Frank's surviving family and previously unavailable documents to cast new light on Frank's relationship with her mother and other issues. Originally published in Germany in 1998 under the title Das Mädchen Anne Frank by Paul List Verlag, Munich.
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Call no. DA566.9.C5 J46 2001
Roy Jenkins combines an unparalleled command of British political history and his own high-level government experience in a narrative account of Churchill's astounding career that is unmatched in its shrewd insights, its unforgettable anecdotes, the clarity of its overarching themes, and the author's nuanced appreciation of his extraordinary subject.
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Call no. D753 .M42 2004
Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were the greatest leaders of “the Greatest Generation.” In Franklin and Winston, Jon Meacham explores the fascinating relationship between the two men who piloted the free world to victory in World War II. It was a crucial friendship, and a unique one—a president and a prime minister spending enormous amounts of time together (113 days during the war) and exchanging nearly two thousand messages. Amid cocktails, cigarettes, and cigars, they met, often secretly, in places as far-flung as Washington, Hyde Park, Casablanca, and Teheran, talking to each other of war, politics, the burden of command, their health, their wives, and their children.
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Call no. DD257.2 .J3513 2022
The years 1945 to 1955 were a raw, wild decade that found many Germans politically, economically, and morally bankrupt. Victorious Allied forces occupied the four zones that make up present-day Germany. More than half the population was displaced; 10 million newly released forced laborers and several million prisoners of war returned to an uncertain existence. Cities lay in ruins: no mail, no trains, no traffic. Bodies were still being found beneath the rubble. Using major global political developments as a backdrop, Jähner weaves a series of life stories into a nuanced panorama of a nation undergoing monumental change. Poised between two eras, this decade is portrayed as a period that proved decisive for Germany's future-- and one starkly different from how most of us imagine it today.
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Call no. D811.A2 B746 1998
In this magnificent testament to a nation and her people, Tom Brokaw brings to life the extraordinary stories of a generation that gave new meaning to courage, sacrifice, and honor.
From military heroes to community leaders to ordinary citizens, he profiles men and women who served their country with valor, then came home and transformed it: Senator Daniel Inouye, decorated at the front, fighting prejudice at home; Martha Settle Putney, one of the first black women to serve in the newly formed WACs; Charles Van Gorder, a doctor who set up a MASH-like medical facility in the middle of battle, then opened a small clinic in his hometown; Navy pilot and future president George H. W. Bush, assigned to read the mail of the enlisted men under him, who says that in doing so he “learned about life”; and many other laudable Americans.
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Call no. DA566.9.C5 L326 2020
On Winston Churchill's first day as prime minister, Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold the country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally and willing to fight to the end. In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people "the art of being fearless." It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it's also an intimate domestic drama set against the backdrop of Churchill's prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports-some released only recently-Larson provides a new lens on London's darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents' wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela's illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the cadre of close advisers who comprised Churchill's "Secret Circle," including his lovestruck private secretary, John Colville; newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook; and the Rasputin-like Frederick Lindemann. The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today's political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership when in the face of unrelenting horror-Churchill's eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.
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Call no. DD256.5 .S7413 2011
Steinacher not only reveals how Nazi war criminals escaped from justice at the end of the Second World War, fleeing through the Tyrolean Alps to Italian seaports, but he also highlights the key roles played by the Red Cross, the Vatican, and the Secret Services of the major powers.
Action-packed history of the Germans in Africa in World War II. One of the most famous military units of all time under one of the best commanders. The early campaigns in the Western Desert, Tobruk, El Alamein, and more.
The volume contributes to the growing field of research on the global social history of the World Wars. Focusing on social and cultural aspects, it discusses the broader implications of the wars for African and Asian societies which resulted in significant social and political transformations.
Discusses the best literature related to the major topics and themes of World War II. Includes essays on the major theaters of military operations, logistics and intelligence, political and diplomatic history, international relations, resistance movements, and collaboration. Also analyzes themes of domestic history in essays on economic mobilization, the home fronts, and women in the military and civilian life.
Foreign Intervention in Africa chronicles the foreign political and military interventions in Africa from 1956 to 2010, during the periods of decolonization and the Cold War, as well as during the periods of state collapse and the "global war on terror." In the first two periods, the most significant intervention was extra-continental. The USA, the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and the former colonial powers entangled themselves in countless African conflicts.
World War II had many superlatives, but none like Operation Torch. a series of simultaneous amphibious landings, audacious commando and paratroop assaults, and the Atlantic's most significant naval battle, fought across a two thousand-mile span of coastline in French North Africa. The risk was enormous, the scale breathtaking, the preparations rushed, the training inadequate, and the ramifications profound. Operation Torch was the first combined Allied offensive and key to how the Second World War unfolded politically and militarily.
This well-written and thoroughly researched biographical account of the life and times of a South African WW2 pilot (the author's father) is sure to appeal widely. The story is by necessity highly personal, drawing on family history and changing lifestyles as the central figure fights his way through a series of challenging experiences, flying coastal strike missions in the Mediterranean and North Africa, then in the Far East against the Japanese. The story is full of personal perspectives and gets off to a thorough and engrossing operational start, before retracing the personal family story to place everything in context.
This book focuses on the extent to which the physical terrain features across Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia affected British operations throughout the campaign in North Africa during the Second World War. One main theme of the work analyses the terrain from the operational and tactical perspective and argues that the landscape features heavily influenced British operations and should now be considered alongside other standard military factors. The work differs from previous studies in that it considers these additional factors for the entire campaign until the Axis surrender in May 1943. Until now it has been widely assumed that much of the Western Desert coastal plateau was a broadly level, open region in which mobile armored operations were paramount. However, this work concentrates on the British operations to show they were driven by the need to capture and hold key features across each successive battlefield.
In the summer of 1943, the United Nations began Operation HUSKY, the invasion of Sicily. The Eagles over HUSKY – the airmen of the Allied air forces – played a crucial role in the assault. The Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica provided a significant part of the Axis force meant to defend the island and throw the Allies back into the sea. The Allied air forces foiled this effort and inflicted losses on a German Air Force badly needed on other fronts. Raids on mainland Italian railway transport crippled Axis resupply efforts. The same strikes brought pressure on the Italian state to denounce Fascism and join the Allied side. Army commanders relied heavily on tactical air power to destroy Axis forces in Sicily. The result was a strategic victory that forced Nazi Germany to stand alone in defense of southern Europe.Most histories of the campaign focus on the escape of German forces across the Strait of Messina.
A riveting new account of the long-overlooked achievement of British-led forces who, against all odds, scored the first major Allied victory of the Second World War Surprisingly neglected in accounts of Allied wartime triumphs, in 1941 British and Commonwealth forces completed a stunning and important victory in East Africa against an overwhelmingly superior Italian opponent. A hastily formed British-led force, never larger than 70,000 strong, advanced along two fronts to defeat nearly 300,000 Italian and colonial troops. This compelling book draws on an array of previously unseen documents to provide both a detailed campaign history and a fresh appreciation of the first significant Allied success of the war. Andrew Stewart investigates such topics as Britain's African wartime strategy; how the fighting forces were assembled (most from British colonies, none from the U.S.); General Archibald Wavell's command abilities and his difficult relationship with Winston Churchill; the resolute Italian defense at Keren, one of the most bitterly fought battles of the entire war; the legacy of the campaign in East Africa; and much more.
In the twenty years after Ireland joined the UN in 1955, one subject dominated its fortunes: Africa. The first detailed study of Ireland's relationship with that continent, this book documents its special place in Irish history. Adopting a highly original, and strongly comparative approach, it shows how small and middling powers like Ireland, Canada, the Netherlands, and the Nordic states used Africa to shape their position in the international system, and how their influence waned with the rise of the Afro-Asian bloc. O'Sullivan chronicles Africa's impact on Irish foreign policy; the link between African decolonization and Irish post-colonial identity; and the missionaries, aid workers, diplomats, peacekeepers, and anti-apartheid protesters at the heart of Irish popular understanding of the developing world. Offering a fascinating account of small state diplomacy, and a unique perspective on African decolonization, this book provides essential insight for scholars of Irish history, African history, international relations, and the history of NGOs, as well as anyone interested in Africa's important place in the Irish public imagination.
Film Criticism, the Cold War, and the Blacklist examine the long-term reception of several key American films released during the postwar period, focusing on the two main critical lenses used in the interpretation of these films: propaganda and allegory. Produced in response to the hearings held by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) that resulted in the Hollywood blacklist, these films' ideological message and rhetorical effectiveness were often muddled by the inherent difficulties in dramatizing villains defined by their thoughts and belief systems rather than their actions. Whereas anti-Communist propaganda films offered explicit political exhortation, allegory was the preferred vehicle for veiled or hidden political comments in many police procedurals, historical films, Westerns, and science fiction films. Jeff Smith examines the way that particular heuristics, such as the mental availability of exemplars and the effects of framing, have encouraged critics to match film elements to contemporaneous historical events, persons, and policies. In charting the development of these particular readings, Film Criticism, the Cold War, and the Blacklist feature case studies of many canonical Cold War titles, including The Red Menace, On the Waterfront, The Robe, High Noon, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, The International Tracing Service, one of the largest Holocaust-related archival repositories in the world, holds millions of documents that enrich our understanding of the many forms of persecution during the Nazi era and its continued repercussions ever since. Drawing on a selection of recently available documents from the archive, this essential resource provides new insights into human decision-making in genocidal settings, the factors that drive it, and its far-reaching consequences. The sources that the author has collected and contextualized here reflect the full range of behaviors and roles that victims, their oppressors, beneficiaries, and postwar aid organizations played beginning in 1933, through World War II, the Holocaust, and up to the present.
In February of 1945, during the final months of the Third Reich, Eva Noack-Mosse was deported to the Nazi concentration camp of Theresienstadt. A trained journalist and expert typist, she was put to work in the Central Evidence office of the camp, compiling endless lists—inmates arriving, inmates deported, possessions confiscated from inmates, and all the obsessive details required by the SS. With access to camp records, she also recorded statistics and her own observations in a secret diary. Noack-Mosse's aim in documenting the horrors of daily life within Theresienstadt was to ensure that such a catastrophe could never be repeated. She also gathered from surviving inmates information about earlier events within the walled fortress, witnessed the defeat and departure of the Nazis, saw the arrival of the International Red Cross and the Soviet Army takeover of the camp and town, assisted in the administration of the camp's closure, and aided displaced persons in discovering the fates of their family and friends. After the war ended, and she returned home, Noack-Mosse cross-referenced her data with that of others to provide evidence of Nazi crimes. At least 35,000 people died at Theresienstadt and another 90,000 were sent on to death camps.
The period of the 'long' Second World War (1936-1948) was marked by mass movements of diverse populations: 60 million people either fled or were forced from their homes. This book considers the Spanish Republicans fleeing Franco's Spain in 1939, the French civilians trying to escape the Nazi invasion in 1940, and the millions of people displaced or expelled by the forces of Hitler's Third Reich. Throughout this period state and voluntary organizations were created to take care of the homeless and the displaced. National organizations dominated until the end of the war; afterward, international organizations - the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency and the International Refugee Organisation - were formed to deal with what was clearly an international problem. Using case studies of displaced people and of relief workers, this book is unique in placing such crises at the center rather than the margins of wartime experience, making the work nothing less than an alternative history of the Second World War.
In World War II, over 36,000 American men, mostly military but some civilian, were thrown into Japanese POW camps and forced to labor for companies working for Japan s war effort. At Japan s largest fixed military prison camp, Mitsubishi s huge factory complex at Mukden, Manchuria, more than 2,000 American prisoners were subjected to cold, starvation, beatings, and even medical experiments, while manufacturing parts for Zero fighter planes. Those lucky enough to survive required the efforts of an OSS rescue team and a special recovery unit to make it home alive. Holmes, who spent two decades tracking down the POWs, shows conclusively for the first time that some Americans at Mukden were singled out for experiments by Japan s infamous biological warfare team.
During World War II the Japanese were stereotyped in the European imagination as fanatical, cruel, and almost inhuman - an image reflected in most books and films about prisoners of war in the Far East. While the Japanese certainly treated those they captured badly, behaving far worse to Chinese and native captives than to Europeans, the conventional view of the Japanese is unhistorical and simplistic. It fails to recognize that the Japanese were acting at a time of supreme national crisis trial, at a particular period of their history, and that their attitudes were influenced by a combination of their perception of their own racial identity mixed with a powerful historical tradition. This collection of essays, by both western and Japanese scholars, aims to see the question from a historical viewpoint, and from both a western and Japanese perspective, looking at it in the light of both longer-term influences, notably the Japanese attempt to establish themselves as an honorary white race. The essays also examine particular instances. Conditions in the almost self-run camp at Changi contrasted remarkably with those on the Burma Railway, where disease and a failure to provide supplies caused terrible suffering. The book also addresses the other side of the question, looking at the treatment of Japanese prisoners in Allied captivity.
For more than forty years the Institute for Oral History at Baylor University has dutifully gathered the flesh-and-blood memories of the World War II generation in the state of Texas. Tattooed on My Soul brings together seventeen of the most compelling narratives from Baylor's extensive collection of more than five thousand interviews. Taken together, these selections provide an authentic and powerful mosaic of those critical years and offer intimate glimpses into the reality and meaning of the war for those who fought it. For them, World War II is more than history. And when they tell their stories, it becomes more than facts and dates, victories and defeats for those who listen. Representing a cross-section of Texas'population and a wide range of wartime assignments, these recollections reveal the personal perspectives on many events and figures of World War II. On land, in air, and by sea, in the Pacific and in Europe, they fought for America's future. With the clear ring of authenticity and a surprising immediacy, even after all these years, their stories make a global war personal.
Until 1919, European wars were settled without post-war trials, and individuals were not punishable under international law. After World War One, European jurists at the Paris Peace Conference developed new concepts of international justice to deal with violations of the laws of war. Though these were not implemented for political reasons, later jurists applied these ideas to other problems, writing new laws and proposing various types of courts to maintain the post-World War One political order. They also aimed to enhance internal state security, address states' failures to respect minority rights, or rectify irregularities in war crimes trials after World War Two. The Birth of the New Justice shows that legal organizations were not merely interested in ensuring that the guilty were punished or that international peace was assured. They hoped to instill particular moral values, represent the interests of certain social groups, and even pursue national agendas. When jurists had to scale back their projects, it was not only because state governments opposed them. It was also because they lacked political connections and did not build public support for their ideas. In some cases, they decided that compromises were better than nothing. Rather than arguing that new legal projects were spearheaded by state governments motivated by 'liberal legalism,' Mark Lewis shows that legal organizations had a broad range of ideological motives - liberal, conservative, utopian, humanitarian, nationalist, and particularist. The International Law Association, the International Association of Penal Law, the World Jewish Congress, and the International Committee of the Red Cross transformed the concept of international violation to deal with new political and moral problems. They repeatedly altered the purpose of an international criminal court, sometimes dropping it altogether when national courts seemed more pragmatic.
This volume examines the role of international law in the Security Council's decisions and decision-making process since the end of the Cold War, with the principle of legality as the theoretical framework.
This is the first major exploration of the United Nations Security Council's part in addressing the problem of war, both civil and international, since 1945. Both during and after the Cold War the Council has acted in a limited and selective manner, and its work has sometimes resulted in failure. It has not been - and was never equipped to be - the center of a comprehensive system of collective security. However, it remains the body charged with primary responsibility for international peace and security. It offers unique opportunities for international consultation and military collaboration, and for developing legal and normative frameworks. It has played a part in the reduction in the incidence of international war in the period since 1945. This study examines the extent to which the work of the UN Security Council, as it has evolved, has or has not replaced older systems of power politics and practices regarding the use of force. Its starting point is the failure to implement the UN Charter scheme of having combat forces under direct UN command. Instead, the Council has advanced the use of international peacekeeping forces; it has authorized coalitions of states to take military action; and it has developed some unanticipated roles such as the establishment of post-conflict transitional administrations, international criminal tribunals, and anti-terrorism committees. The book, bringing together distinguished scholars and practitioners, draws on the methods of the lawyer, the historian, the student of international relations, and the practitioner. It begins with an introductory overview of the Council's evolving roles and responsibilities. It then discusses specific thematic issues, and through a wide range of case studies examines the scope and limitations of the Council's involvement in the war. It offers frank accounts of how belligerents viewed the UN, and how the Council acted and sometimes failed to act.
The United Nations in International History argues for a new way of examining the history of this central global institution by integrating more traditional diplomacy between states with new trends in transnational and cultural history to explore the organization and its role in 20th- and 21st-century history. Amy Sayward looks at the origins of the U.N. before examining a range of organizations and players in the United Nations system and analyzing its international work in the key areas of diplomacy, social & economic development programs, peace-keeping, and human rights. This volume provides a concise introduction to the broad array of international work done by the United Nations, synthesizes the existing interdisciplinary literature, and highlights areas in need of further research, making it ideal for students and beginning researchers.
This essential new volume reviews the threat perceptions, military doctrines, and war plans of both the NATO alliance and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, as well as the position of the neutrals, from the post-Cold War perspective. Based on previously unknown archival evidence from both East and West, the twelve essays in the book focus on the potential European battlefield rather than the strategic competition between the superpowers. They present conclusions about the nature of the Soviet threat that could previously only be speculated about and analyze the interaction between military matters and politics in the alliance management on both sides, with implications for the present crisis of the Western alliance. This new book will be of much interest to students of the Cold War, strategic history, and international relations history, as well as all military colleges.