Still Contested and Colonized Ground: Post–Cold War Interpretations of U.S. Foreign Relations during World War II

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139021760.005

4 - Still Contested and Colonized Ground: Post–Cold War Interpretations of U.S. Foreign Relations during World War II

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014

Mark A. Stoler

Edited by

Frank Costigliola and

Michael J. Hogan

Show author details

Mark A. Stoler: Affiliation:
University of Vermont
Frank Costigliola: Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
Michael J. Hogan: Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Springfield

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Although World War II ended more than sixty-five years ago, it continues to exercise an enormous influence over contemporary thought and historical scholarship. This is true not only in the obvious field of military history, but in diplomatic history as well.

In previous essays I noted that the historiography of U.S. foreign relations during World War II possessed characteristics both similar to and different from other areas of intense historical dispute.Major similarities included the large volume of writings, the impact of contemporary concerns on evolving interpretations, and the effect of new schools of thought regarding U.S. foreign relations in general. World War II diplomacy was a unique field, however, in at least two important respects. First, the combination of massive documentary evidence and continued popular interest in the war had resulted in a volume of literature so enormous and so rapidly growing as to merit special mention. Second, although the resulting schools of interpretation reflected to an extent those of U.S. foreign relations in general, they possessed a distinctive quality because of the enormous influence of the Cold War on the interpreters. That influence had led most historians for many years to analyze World War II diplomacy primarily in terms of its role in the post-war Soviet-American conflict.

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: America in the World
The Historiography of American Foreign Relations since 1941
, pp. 57 - 82

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139021760.005 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Haines, Gerald K. and Walker, J. Samuel (eds.), American Foreign Relations: A Historiographical Review (Westport, CT, 1981), 187–206

Hogan, Michael J. (ed.), America in the World: The Historiography of American Foreign Relations Since 1941 (New York, 1995), 166–205

Schulzinger, Robert D. (ed.), A Companion to American Foreign Relations (Malden, MA, 2003), 188–214

Lee, Loyd E., “We Have Just Begun to Write,”Diplomatic History 25 (Summer, 2001): 367Google Scholar

Lee, Loyd E. (ed.), World War II in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, with General Sources: A Handbook of Literature and Research (Westport, CT, 1997) and World War II in Asia and the Pacific and the War’s Aftermath, with General Themes: A Handbook of Literature and Research (Westport, CT, 1998)

Zeiler, Thomas W. with DuBois, Daniel M. (eds.), A Companion to World War II, 2 vols. (Malden, MA, 2012)

Watt, Donald Cameron, “Britain and the Historiography of the Yalta Conference and the Cold War,”Diplomatic History 13 (Winter 1989): 79Google Scholar

Theoharis, Athan, The Yalta Myths: An Issue in U.S. Politics, 1945–1955 (Columbia, MO, 1970)

U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945 (Washington, D.C., 1955)

Stettinius, Edward, Roosevelt and the Russians: The Yalta Conference (Garden City, NY, 1949), and by four historians (John L. Snell, Forrest C. Pogue, Charles F. Delzell, and George A. Lensen) who collaborated after publication of the Yalta Conference volume to write The Meaning of Yalta: Big Three Diplomacy and the Balance of Power (Baton Rouge, 1956)

Lowenheim, Francis L., Langley, Harold, and Jonas, Manfred (eds.), Roosevelt and Churchill: Their Secret Wartime Correspondence (New York, 1975)

Kimball, Warren F. (ed.), Churchill & Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence, 3 vols. (Princeton, NJ, 1984)

Butler, Susan in 2005 edited My Dear Mr. Stalin: The Complete Correspondence of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph V. Stalin (New Haven, CT, 2005)

Greenfield, Kent Roberts in The Historian and the Army (New Brunswick, NJ, 1954)

Colville, John, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries, 1939–1955 (New York, 1985)

Reynolds, David, “Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Wartime Anglo-American Alliance: Towards a New Synthesis,” in Louis, Wm. Roger and Bull, Hedley (eds.), The “Special Relationship”: Anglo-American Relations since 1945 (Oxford, 1986), 17–18

Reynolds, David, In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War (New York, 2005)

Howard, Michael, The Mediterranean Strategy in the Second World War (London, 1968)

Ambrose, Stephen E., Eisenhower and Berlin, 1945: The Decision to Halt at the Elbe (New York, 1967)

O’Connor, Raymond G., Diplomacy for Victory: FDR and Unconditional Surrender (New York, 1971)

Higgins, Trumbull, Soft Underbelly: The Anglo-American Controversy over the Italian Campaign (New York, 1968)

Clemens, Diane Shaver, Yalta (New York, 1970)

Alperovitz, Gar, Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam: The Use of the Atomic Bomb and the American Confrontation with Soviet Power, 1st ed. (New York, 1965)

Burns, James MacGregor, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom (New York, 1970)

Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy (New York, 1979)

Iriye, Akira, Power and Culture: The Japanese-American War, 1941–1945 (Cambridge, MA, 1981)

Dower, John W., War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York, 1986)

Thorne, Christopher, Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain and the War against Japan, 1941–1945 (New York, 1978)

The Issue of War: States, Societies, and the Far Eastern Conflict of 1941–1945 (New York, 1985)

Ninkovich, Frank A., The Diplomacy of Ideas: U.S. Foreign Policy and Cultural Relations, 1938–1950 (New York, 1981)

Sherry, Michael S., The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon (New Haven, CT, 1987)

Iriye, Akira, “The Internationalization of History,”American Historical Review 94 (February 1989): 1–10Google Scholar

Thorne, Christopher, Border Crossings: Studies in International History (Oxford, 1988)

Hogan, Michael J. and Paterson, Thomas G. (eds.), Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, 2nd ed. (New York, 2004), 214–25

Sigal, Leon V., Fighting to a Finish: The Politics of War Termination in the United States and Japan, 1945 (Ithaca, NY, 1988)

Kolko, Gabriel was one of the first scholars to reject Roosevelt’s centrality in his revisionist The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943–1945 (New York, 1968)

Gallicchio, Marc S., The African-American Encounter with Japan and China: Black Internationalism in Asia, 1895–1945 (Chapel Hill, NC, 2000)

Kearney, Reginald, African American Views of the Japanese: Solidarity or Sedition? (Albany, NY, 1998)

Meriwether, James H., Proudly We Can be Africans: Black Americans and Africa, 1935–1961 (Chapel Hill, NC, 2002)

Plummer, Brenda G., Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs, 1935–1960 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1996)

Eschen, Penny M. Von, Race Against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937–1957 (Ithaca, NY, 1997)

Warren, Frank A., Noble Abstractions: American Liberal Intellectuals and World War II (Columbus, OH, 1999)

Litoff, Judy B. and Smith, David C. (eds.), What Kind of World Do We Want? American Women Plan for Peace (Wilmington, DE, 2000)

Alonso, Harriet Hyman, Peace as a Women’s Issue: A History of the U.S. Movement for World Peace and Women’s Rights (Syracuse, NY, 1993)

Reynolds, David, Rich Relations: The American Occupation of Britain, 1942–1945 (New York, 1995)

Schrijvers, Peter, The Crash of Ruin: American Combat Soldiers in Europe during World War II (New York, 1998)

Hitchcock, William, The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe (New York, 2008

Footitt, Hilary, War and Liberation in France: Living with the Liberators (New York, 2004)

Rose, Sonya O., “The ‘Sex Question’ in Anglo-American Relations in the Second World War,”International History Review 20 (December 1998): 884–903Google Scholar

Roberts, Mary Louise, “The Price of Discretion: Prostitution, Venereal Disease, and the American Military in France, 1944–1946,”American Historical Review 115 (October 2010): 1002–30Google Scholar

Casey, Steven, Cautious Crusade: Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, and the War Against Nazi Germany (New York, 2001)

Stoler, Mark A., “Selling Different Kinds of War: Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Public Opinion during World War II,” in Osgood, Kenneth and Frank, Andrew K. (eds.), Selling War in a Media Age: The Presidency and Public Opinion in the American Century (Gainesville, FL, 2000)

Shulman, Holly Cowan, The Voice of America: Propaganda and Democracy, 1941–1945 (Madison, WI, 1990)

Laurie, Clayton D., The Propaganda Warriors: America’s Crusade against Nazi Germany (Lawrence, KS, 1996)

Winfield, Betty Houchin, FDR and the News Media (Urbana, IL, 1990)

Sweeney, Michael S., Secrets of Victory: The Office of Censorship and the American Press and Radio in World War II (Chapel Hill, NC, 2001)

Zelizer, Julian, Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security from World War II to the War on Terrorism (New York, 2009)

Brewer, Susan A., To Win the Peace: British Propaganda in the United States during World War II (Ithaca, NY, 1997) and Why America Fights: Patriotism and War Propaganda from the Philippines to Iraq (New York, 2009), ch. 3

Bennett, M. Todd, “Culture, Power, and Mission to Moscow: Film and Soviet-American Relations during World War II,”Journal of American History 88 (September 2001): 489–518Google Scholar

One World, Big Screen: Hollywood, the Allies, and World War II (Chapel Hill, NC, 2012)

Koppes, Klayton R. and Black, Gregory D., Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profits and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies (New York, 1987)

Doherty, Thomas, Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II (New York, 1993)

Biskupski, M. B. B., Hollywood’s War with Poland, 1939–1945 (Lexington, KY, 2010)

MacDougall, Robert, “Red, Brown, and Yellow Perils: Images of the Enemy in the 1940s and 1950s,”Journal of Popular Culture 32 (Spring 1999): 59–75Google Scholar

Reynolds, David, “World War II and Modern Meanings,”Diplomatic History 25 (Summer 2001): 457–72Google Scholar

Reynolds, ’s From World War to Cold War: Churchill, Roosevelt, and the International History of the 1940s (Oxford, 2006)

Adams, Michael C. C., The Best War Ever: America and World War II (Baltimore, 1994)

Linenthal, Edward T. and Englehardt, Tom (eds.), History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past (New York, 1996)

Record, Jeffrey, The Specter of Munich: Reconsidering the Lessons of Appeasing Hitler (Washington, D.C., 2007)

Rosenberg, Emily, A Date Which Will Live: Pearl Harbor in American Memory (Durham, NC, 2003)

Gallicchio, Marc (ed.), The Unpredictability of the Past: Memories of the Asia-Pacific War in U.S.-East Asian Relations (Durham, NC, 2007)

Stoler, Mark A., “The Second World War in US History and Memory,”Diplomatic History 25 (Summer 2001): 383–92Google Scholar

Leffler, Melvyn P.’s A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, CA, 1992)

Kimball, Warren F. and Sevost’ianov, G. N. (eds.), Soviet-U.S. Relations, 1939–1942 (Moscow, 1989)

Reynolds, David, Kimball, Warren F. and Chubarian, A. O. (eds.), Allies at War: The Soviet, American and British Experience, 1939–1945 (New York, 1994)

Gorodetsky, Gabriel (ed.), Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1991: A Retrospective (Portland, OR, 1994)

Lane, Ann and Temperly, Howard (eds.), The Rise and Fall of the Grand Alliance, 1941–1945 (New York, 1995)

Rzheshevsky, Oleg A. (ed.), War and Diplomacy: The Making of the Grand Alliance, trans. by Sorokina, T. (Amsterdam, 1996)

Volkogonov, Dmitri, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy (New York, 1991)

Gromyko, Andrei, Memoirs (New York, 1989)

Resis, Albert (ed.), Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics: Conversations with Felix Chuev (Chicago, 1993)

Zubok, Vladislav M. and Pleshakov, Constantine, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev (Cambridge, 1996)

Weinberg, Gerhard’s A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (New York, 1994)

Overy, Richard J.’s Why the Allies Won (New York, 1996)

Murray, Williamson and Millett, Alan R.’s A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War (Cambridge, MA, 2000)

Kennedy, David M.’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (New York, 1999)

Dear, I. C. B. (ed.), The Oxford Companion to World War II (New York, 1995)

Nadeau, Remi, Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt Divide Europe (New York, 1990)

Edmonds, Robin, The Big Three: Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin in Peace & War (New York, 1991)

Dunn, Dennis J., Caught Between Roosevelt and Stalin: America’s Ambassadors to Moscow (Lexington, KY, 1998)

Glantz, Mary E., FDR and the Soviet Union: The President’s Battles over Foreign Policy (Lawrence, KS, 2005)

Aga-Rossi, Elena, “Roosevelt’s European Policy and the Origins of the Cold War: A Reevaluation,”Telos 96 (Summer, 1993): 65–85Google Scholar

Perlmutter, Amos, FDR and Stalin: A Not So Grand Alliance, 1943–1945 (Columbia, MO, 1993)

Kimball, Warren F., The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman (Princeton, NJ, 1991)

Bennett, Edward M., Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Search for Victory: American-Soviet Relations, 1939–1945 (Wilmington, DE, 1990)

Woolner, David B., Kimball, Warren F., and Reynolds, David (eds.), FDR’s World: War, Peace and Legacies (New York, 2008)

Gardner, Lloyd C., Spheres of Influence: The Great Powers Partition Europe, from Munich to Yalta (Chicago, 1993)

Mark, J. Conversino’s study of the shuttle-bombing project, Fighting with the Soviets: The Failure of Operation Frantic (Lawrence, KS, 1997)

Westad, Odd Arne, Cold War and Revolution: Soviet-American Rivalry and the Origins of the Chinese Civil War, 1944–1946 (New York, 1993)

Kimball, Warren F., “The Incredible Shrinking War: The Second World War, Not (just) the Origins of the Cold War,”Diplomatic History 25 (Summer 2001): 351–52Google Scholar

Charmley, John, Churchill: The End of Glory: A Political Biography and Churchill’s Grand Alliance: The Anglo-American Special Relationship, 1940–1957 (New York: 1993 and 1995)

Ben-Moshe, Tuvia’s highly critical Churchill: Strategy and History (Boulder, 1992)

Cohen, Eliot’s “Churchill and Coalition Strategy in World War II,” in Kennedy, Paul (ed.), Grand Strategies in War and Peace (New Haven, CT, 1991), 43–67

Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (New York, 2002)

Carlton, David, Churchill and the Soviet Union (New York, 2000)

Folly, Martin H., Churchill, Whitehall and the Soviet Union, 1940–1945 (New York, 2000)

Parrish, Michael E., “Soviet Espionage and the Cold War,”Diplomatic History 25 (winter 2001): 105–20Google Scholar

Dilks, David (ed.), The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 1938–1945 (New York, 1972), 21

Andrew, Christopher and Dilks, David (eds.), The Missing Dimension: Governments and Intelligence Communities in the Twentieth Century (Urbana, IL, 1984)

Smith, Bradley F., Sharing Secrets with Stalin: How the Allies Traded Intelligence, 1941–1945 (Lawrence, KS, 1996)

Aldrich, Richard J., Intelligence and the War Against Japan: Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service (New York, 2000)

Jakub, Jay, Spies and Saboteurs: Anglo-American Collaboration and Rivalry in Human Intelligence Collection and Special Operations, 1940–45 (New York, 1999)

Alvarez, David, Secret Messages: Codebreaking and American Diplomacy, 1930–1945 (Lawrence, KS, 2000)

Smith, ’s The Ultra-Magic Deals and the Most Secret Special Relationship, 1940–1946 (Novato, CA, 1993)

Bath, Alan, Tracking the Axis Enemy: The Triumph of Anglo-American Naval Intelligence (Lawrence, KS, 1998)

Kahn, David, The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing rev. ed. (New York, 1996)

Persico, Joseph E., Roosevelt’s Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage (New York, 2001)

Soybel, Phylis L., Necessary Relationship: the Development of Anglo-American Cooperation in Naval Intelligence (Westford, CT, 2005)

Stafford, David, Roosevelt and Churchill: Men of Secrets (Woodstock, NY, 2000)

Bennett, Ralph F., Ultra in the West: The Normandy Campaign, 1944–1945 (New York, 1979)

Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy (New York, 1989)

Drea, Edward J., MacArthur’s ULTRA: Codebreaking and the War Against Japan, 1942–1945 (Lawrence, KS, 1992)

Hinsley, F. H., et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, 5 vols. in 6 (New York, 1979–90)

Sexton, Donal J., Jr. edited Signals Intelligence in World War II: A Research Guide (Westport, CT, 1996)

Beisner, Robert (ed.), American Foreign Relations since 1600: A Guide to the Literature 2nd ed. (Santa Barbara, CA, 2003), 1: 999–1007.

Ford, Kirk, Jr., OSS and the Yugoslav Resistance, 1943–1945 (College Station, TX, 1992)

Reynolds, E. Bruce, Thailand’s Secret War: OSS, SOE, and the Free Thai Underground (Cambridge, 2005)

Bartholomew-Feis, Dixie R., The OSS and Ho Chi Minh: Unexpected Allies in the War Against Japan (Lawrence, KS, 2006)

Jones, Matthew, Britain, the United States and the Mediterranean War, 1942–1944 (New York, 1996)

Porch, Douglas, The Path to Victory: The Mediterranean Theater in World War II (New York, 2004)

Smith, Kevin, Conflict Over Convoys: Anglo-American Logistics Diplomacy in the Second World War (Cambridge, 1996)

Stoler, Mark A., Allies in War: Britain and America against the Axis Powers, 1940–1945 (London, 2005)

Weiss, Steve, Allies in Conflict: Anglo-American Strategic Negotiations, 1938–1944 (New York, 1996)

Danchev, Alex, On Specialness: Essays in Anglo-American Relations (New York, 1998)

Septimus, Paul H., Nuclear Rivals: Anglo-American Atomic Relations, 1941–1952 (Columbus, OH, 2000)

Wilson, Theodore A., The First Summit: Roosevelt & Churchill at Placentia Bay, 1941 (Lawrence, KS, 1991)

Bercuson, David and Herwig, Holger, One Christmas in Washington: The Secret Meeting Between Roosevelt and Churchill that Changed the World (Woodstock, NY, 2005)

Dobson, Alan, Peaceful Air Warfare: the United States and the Politics of International Aviation (New York, 1991)

FDR and Civil Aviation: Flying Strong, Flying Free (New York, 2011)

Hefferman, Ronald Ian, The Cairo Conference of 1943: Roosevelt, Churchill, Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang (Jefferson, NC, 2011)

Woolner, David B. (ed.), The Second Quebec Conference Revisited (New York, 1998)

Schild, Georg, Bretton Woods and Dumbarton Oaks: American Economic and Political Planning in the Summer of 1944 (New York, 1995)

Zeiler, Thomas’s Free Trade, Free World: The Advent of GATT (Chapel Hill, NC, 1999)

Hilderbrand, Robert C.’s Dumbarton Oaks: The Origins of the United Nations and the Search for Postwar Security (Chapel Hill, NC, 1990)

Woods, Randall, A Changing of the Guard: Anglo-American Relations, 1941–1946 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1990)

Hoopes, Townsend and Brinkley, Douglas, FDR and the Creation of the UN (New Haven, CT, 1997)

Schlesinger, Stephen C., Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations (Cambridge, MA, 2003)

Mazower, Mark, No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations (Princeton, NJ, 2009)

Schild, Georg, “The Roosevelt Administration and the United Nations: Re-creation or Rejection of the League Experience?,”World Affairs 158 (Summer, 1995): 26–34Google Scholar

Hearden, Patrick, Architects of Globalism: Building a New World Order During World War II (Fayetteville, AR, 2002)

Stone, David, War Summits: The Meetings that Shaped World War II and the Postwar World (Washington, D.C., 2005)

Parmar, Inderjeet, Special Interests, the State and the Anglo-American Alliance, 1939–1945 (Portland, OR, 1995)

Think Tanks and Power in Foreign Policy: A Comparative Study of the Role and Influence of the Council of Foreign Relations and the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1939–1945 (London, 2008)

Stoler, Mark A., “Wartime Conferences,” in Zeiler, with DuBois, , A Companion to World War II, 1: 448–61

Kimball, Warren F. (ed.), America Unbound: World War II and the Making of a Superpower (New York, 1992)

Clarke, Peter, The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire: Churchill, Roosevelt, and the Birth of Pax Americana (New York, 2008)

Stoler, Mark A., Allies and Adversaries: the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Grand Alliance and U.S. Strategy in World War II (Chapel Hill, NC, 2000)

Sarantakes, Nicholas Evan, Allies against the Rising Sun: the United States the British Nations, and the Defeat of Imperial Japan (Lawrence, KS, 2009)

Roy, Denny, The Pacific War and Its Political Legacies (Westport, CT, 2009)

English, John Alan, “Not an Equilateral Triangle: Canada’s Strategic Relationship with the United States and Britain, 1939–1945,” in McKercher, Brian C. and Aronsen, Lawrence (eds.), The North Atlantic Triangle in a Changing World: Anglo-American-Canadian Relations, 1902–1956 (Toronto, 1996), 147–83

Perras, Galen, Franklin Roosevelt and the Origins of the Canadian-American Security Alliance, 1933–1945: Necessary but Not Necessary Enough (Westport, CT, 1998)

di Tella, Guido and Watt, Donald Cameron (eds.), Argentina between the Great Powers, 1939–1946 (Pittsburgh, 1990)

Weigold, Auriol, Churchill, Roosevelt and India: Propaganda during World War II (New York, 2008)

Vitalis, Robert, “The ‘New Deal’ in Egypt: The Rise of Anglo-American Commercial Competition in World War II and the Fall of Neocolonialism,”Diplomatic History 20 (Spring 1996): 211–39Google Scholar

Baxter, Christopher, The Great Power Struggle in East Asia, 1944–1950: Britain, America and Post-War Rivalry (New York, 2009)

Smith, T. O., Churchill, America and Vietnam, 1941–1945 (New York, 2011)

Beschloss, Michael, The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1941–1945 (New York, 2002)

McAlister, James, No Exit: America and the German Problem 1943–1954 (Ithaca, NY, 2002)

Kochavi, Arieh, Prelude to Nuremberg: Allied War Crimes Policy and the Question on Punishment (Chapel Hill, NC, 1998)

Hoenicke-Moore, Michaela, Know Your Enemy: The American Debate on Nazism, 1933–1945 (New York, 2009)

Newton, Ronald C., The “Nazi Menace” in Argentina, 1931–1947 (Stanford, CA, 1992)

Salinas, Maria Emilia Paz, Strategy, Security and Spies: Mexico and the U.S. as Allies in World War II (University Park, PA, 1997)

Friedman, Max Paul, Nazis and Good Neighbors: The United States Campaign against the Germans of Latin America in World War II (New York, 2003)

Brower, Charles F. (ed.), World War II in Europe: The Final Year (New York, 2008)

Offner, Arnold A. and Wilson, Theodore A. (eds.), Victory in Europe, 1945: from World War to Cold War (Lawrence, KS, 2000)

Rossi, Elena Aga, A Nation Collapses: The Italian Surrender of September 1943, trans. by Fergusson, Harvey (New York, 2000)

Heuvel, William J. Vanden, “America and the Holocaust,”American Heritage 50 (July/August, 1999): 38–52Google Scholar

Newton, Verne W. (ed.), FDR and the Holocaust (New York, 1996)

Neufeld, Michael J. and Berenbaum, Michael (eds.), The Bombing of Auschwitz: Should the Allies Have Attempted It? (New York, 2000)

Lipstadt, Deborah, Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust (New York, 1986)

Breitman, Richard D. and Kraut, Alan M., American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933–1945 (Bloomington, IN, 1987)

Rubenstein, William D., The Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies Could Not Have Saved More Jews from the Nazis (New York, 1997)

Breitman, Richard and Lichtman, Alan J., FDR and the Jews (Cambridge, MA, 2013)

Novick, Peter, The Holocaust in American Life (Boston, 1999)

Alperovitz, Gar, The Decision to Use the Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth (New York, 1995)

Miles, Rufus J., Jr., “Hiroshima: The Strange Myth of Half a Million American Lives Saved, International Security 10 (Fall 1985): 121–40Google Scholar

Bernstein, Barton J., “A Postwar Myth: 500,000 Lives Saved,”Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 42 (June/July 1986): 38–40Google Scholar

“Reconsidering Truman’s Claim of ‘Half a Million American Lives Saved’ by the Atomic Bomb: The Construction and Deconstruction of a Myth,”Journal of Strategic Studies 22 (March 1999): 54–95;

Skates, John Ray, The Invasion of Japan: Alternative to the Bomb (Columbia, SC, 1994)

Giangreco, G. M., “Casualty Projections for the U.S. Invasion of Japan, 1945–1946: Planning and Policy Implications,”Journal of Military History 61 (July 1997): 521–81Google Scholar

Hell to Pay: Operation DOWNFALL and the Invasion of Japan, 1945–1947 (Annapolis, MD, 2009)

Newman, Robert P., Truman and the Hiroshima Cult (East Lansing, MI, 1995)

Thelen, David, et al., “History and the Public: What Can We Handle? A Roundtable about History after the Enola Gay Controversy,”Journal of American History 82 (December 1995): 1029–1135Google Scholar

Hogan, Michael J. (ed.), Hiroshima in History and Memory (New York, 1996)

Bird, Kai and Lifschultz, Lawrence (eds.), Hiroshima’s Shadow: Writings on the Denial of History and the Smithsonian Controversy (Stony Creek, CT, 1998)

Walker, , “Recent Literature,” as well as his Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of the Atomic Bombs Against Japan, rev. ed. (Chapel Hill, NC, 2005)

Pearlman, Michael D., Unconditional Surrender, Demobilization, and the Atomic Bomb (Ft. Leavenworth, KS, 1996)

Brower, Charles F., Defeating Japan: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and Strategy in the Pacific War, 1943–1945 (New York, 2012)

Frank, Richard B., Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (New York, 1999)

Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan (Cambridge, MA, 2005)

Butow, Robert J. C., Japan’s Decision to Surrender (Stanford, CA, 1954)

Zeiler, Thomas W., Unconditional Defeat: Japan, America and the End of World War II (Wilmington, DE, 2003)

Drea, Edward J.’s In the Service of the Emperor: Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army (Lincoln, NE, 1998)

MacEachin, Douglas J.’s The Final Months of the War with Japan: Signals Intelligence, U.S. Invasion Planning, and the Atomic Bomb Decision (Washington, D.C., 1998)

Spector, Ronald, In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia (New York, 2008)

Gallicchio, Marc, The Scramble for Asia: U.S. Military Power in the Aftermath of the Pacific War (Lanham, MD, 2008)

Lifton, Robert J. and Mitchell, Greg, Fifty Years of Denial (New York, 1995)

Boyer, Paul’s earlier By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (Chapel Hill, NC, 1985, 1994)

Rotter, Andrew J., Hiroshima: The World’s Bomb (New York, 2008)

Welles, Benjamin, Sumner Welles: FDR’s Global Strategist: A Biography (New York, 1997)

O’Sullivan, Christopher D., Sumner Welles, Postwar Planning, and the Quest for a New World Order, 1937–1943 (New York, 2008)

Graff, Frank Warren’s posthumously published 1971 doctoral dissertation, Strategy of Involvement: A Diplomatic Biography of Sumner Welles, 1933–1943 (New York, 1988)

Bird, Kai, The Chairman: John J. McCloy, The Making of the American Establishment (New York, 1992)

Eiler, Keith, Mobilizing America: Robert P. Patterson and the War Effort, 1940–1945 (Ithaca, NY, 1997)

Hershberg, James, James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age (New York, 1993)

Bird, Kai and Sherwin, Martin J., American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (New York, 2005)

MacLean, Elizabeth Kimball, Joseph E. Davies: Envoy to the Soviets (Westport, CT, 1992)

Crosswell, D. K., Beetle: The Life of General Walter Bedell Smith (Lexington, KY, 2010)

Muir, Malcolm Jr. (ed.), The Human Tradition in the World War II Era, (Wilmington, DE, 2000), 101–19 and 261–78

Malloy, Sean, Atomic Tragedy: Henry L. Stimson and the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb Against Japan (Ithaca, NY, 2008)

Wills, Matthew, Wartime Missions of Harry L. Hopkins (Raleigh, NC, 1996)

Roll, David L., The Hopkins Touch: Harry Hopkins and the Forging of the Alliance to Defeat Hitler (New York, 2013)

Schmitz, David F., Henry L. Stimson: The First Wise Man (Wilmington, DE, 2001)

Hodgson, Godfrey, The Colonel: The Life and Wars of Henry Stimson, 1867–1950 (Boston, 1990)

Hoopes, Townsend and Brinkley, Douglas, Driven Patriot: The Life and Times of James Forrestal (New York, 1992)

Brower, Charles F. (ed.), George C. Marshall: Servant of the American Nation (New York, 2011)

D’Este, Carlo, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life (New York, 2003)

Smith, Jean Edward, Eisenhower: In War and Peace (New York, 2012)

Korda, Michael, Ike: An American Hero (New York, 2008)

Perret, Geoffrey, Eisenhower (Holbrook, MA, 1999)

Black, Conrad, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom (New York, 2003)

Brands, H. W., Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (New York, 2008)

Jenkins, Roy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (New York, 2003)

Maney, Patrick J., The Roosevelt Presence: A Biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (New York, 1992)

Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Rendezvous with Destiny (Boston, 1990)

Smith, Jean Edward, FDR (New York, 2007)

Davis, Kenneth S.’s posthumously published fifth volume on Roosevelt, FDR, the War President, 1940–1943: A History (New York, 2000)

Woolner, David B., Kimball, Warren F., and Reynolds, David (eds)., FDR’s World: War, Peace, and Legacies (New York, 2008)

Gilbert, Martin’s Churchill: A Life (New York, 1991)

Jenkins, Roy, Churchill: A Biography (London and New York, 2001)

d’Este, Carlo, Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War, 1874–1945 (New York, 2008)

Hastings, Max, Winston’s War: Churchill, 1940–1945 (New York, 2009)

Callahan, Raymond, Churchill and His Generals (Lawrence, KS, 2007)

Kimball, Warren F., Forged in War: Roosevelt, Churchill and the Second World War (New York, 1997)

Roberts, Andrew, Masters and Commanders: How Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and Alanbrooke Won the War in the West (New York, 2008)

Bland, Larry I. (ed.), The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vols. 2–5 (Baltimore, MD, 1986, 1991, 1996, 2003)

Danchev, Alex and Todman, Daniel (eds.), War Diaries, 1939–1945: Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke (London, 2001)

Sainsbury, Keith, Churchill and Roosevelt at War: The War They Fought and the Peace They Hoped to Make (Washington Square, NY, 1994)

Meacham, Jon, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship (New York, 2003)

Fenby, Jonathan, Alliance: The Inside Story of How Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill Won One War and Began Another (San Francisco, 2006)

Perry, Mark, Partners in Command: George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower in War and Peace (New York, 2007)

Stafford, David, Roosevelt and Churchill: Men of Secrets (Woodstock, NY, 2000)

Berthon, Simon, Allies at War: The Bitter Rivalry among Churchill, Roosevelt and de Gaulle (New York, 2001)

Fromkin, David, In the Time of the Americans: FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Marshall, MacArthur – the Generation that Changed America’s Role in the World (New York, 1995)

van Minnen, Cornelius A. and Sears, John (eds.), FDR and His Contemporaries: Foreign Perceptions of an American President (New York, 1992)

Goodwin, Doris Kearns, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (New York, 1994)

Gellman, Irwin F., Secret Affairs: Franklin Roosevelt, Cordell Hull and Sumner Welles (Baltimore, 1995)

Costigliola, Frank, Roosevelt’s Lost Alliances: How Personal Politics Helped Start the Cold War (Princeton, NJ, 2012)

Clemens, Diane Shaver, “Averell Harriman, John Deane, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the ‘Reversal of Cooperation’ with the Soviet Union in 1945,” International History Review 14 (May 1992): 277–306Google Scholar

Miscamble, Wilson D., From Roosevelt to Truman: Potsdam, Hiroshima and the Cold War (New York, 2007)

Roberts, Geoffrey, Stalin’s Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1945 (New Haven, CT, 2006)

Plokhy, S. M., Yalta: The Price of Peace (New York, 2010)

Harbutt, Fraser J., Yalta 1945: Europe and America at the Crossroads (New York, 2010)

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this chapter is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.