Автор: Dennis Showalter
Название: History in Dispute. Volume 4: World War II, 1939-1943; Volume 5: World War II, 1943-1945
Издательство: St James Press
Год: 2000
ISBN: 1558624104 (v.4); 1558624112 (v.5)
Серия: History in Dispute (Book 4 and 5)
Язык: English
Формат: pdf
Размер: 67,2 mb
Страниц: 336+384
World War II had its origins in a toxic blend of unfinished business and new traumas. The Great War of 1914-1918 had left Europe exhausted but unsatisfied. France and Britain were almost as suspicious of each other as of their former enemy. Germany emerged with a festering sense of grievance at being made to bear the moral and financial responsibility for what its people saw as a defensive conflict. In the east and south, a network of middle-sized “successor states” to the Habsburg Empire sought to establish legitimacy and gain advantages over their neighbors. Italy, which in 1914 had been the least of the great powers, hoped for relative gain at the expense of others’ weak-
nesses.
Added to this situation were the psychological traumas generated by the squandering of prewar Europe’s moral capital in the trenches, and by the climate of violence generated in all the combatants during four years of near-total war. In addition, there were the economic dislocations accompanying newly drawn frontiers and the diminished capacities of industries and agricultures strained to their limits and beyond. Not only men but also animals had been sacrificed in pursuit of a victory that in the end eluded all the war’s participants; even manure to replenish exhausted farms was in short supply.
This 2 volumes invite to discussion from the different points of view on the key events of the World War II.