4.14 World War II

The 1930s and 1940s were trying times. A global economic crisis gave way to a global war that became the deadliest and most destructive in human history. Perhaps eighty million individuals lost their lives during World War II. The war saw industrialized genocide and nearly threatened the eradication of an entire people. It also unleashed the most fearsome technology ever used in war. And when it ended, the United States found itself alone as the world’s greatest superpower. Armed with the world’s greatest economy, it looked forward to the fruits of a prosperous consumers’ economy. But the war raised as many questions as it would settle and unleashed new social forces at home and abroad that confronted generations of Americans to come.

The outbreak of World War II had its roots in World War I. Many of the victors as well as the defeated nations were deeply dissatisfied with the peace terms from the Paris Peace Conference. Over the next two decades, Germany, the Soviet Union, Italy, Poland, and Japan all sought to achieve on their own what the Allied leaders had denied them during the negotiations.

War debts imposed at Versailles shackled Germany’s economy. As Germany struggled to recover during the Great Depression, so did all of Europe. In Central and Eastern Europe, rivalry among fascists, communists, and other political factions led to frequent violence and instability. Faced with an unstable world, the United States turned away from collective action. Although it possessed the resources at least to ease international tensions, Americans declined to lead in world affairs and remained outside of the League of Nations.

World War II was a global war. Perhaps as many as 100 million people took up arms; some 40 to 50 million lost their lives. Armies fought from the Artic to the southwestern Pacific, in the great cities of Europe and Asia, the small villages of North Africa and Indochina, in malarial jungles and scorching deserts, on six continents and across four oceans.

Tragedy on such a scale taught the generation of Americans who fought the war that they could no longer isolate themselves from any part of the world, no matter how remote. Retreat into isolation had not cured the worldwide Depression or preserved the peace. As it waged a global war, the United States began to assume a far wider responsibility for managing the world’s geopolitical and economic systems.