In a major revision of this popular text, Dr. Justus Doenecke integrates
scholarly research conducted in the 1990s to offer readers a fresh
picture of the major events and historiographical controversies in
American diplomacy in the decade before Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.
Individual chapters center on the aftermath of World War I, the
Manchurian crisis, the expansion of Germany and Japan and the U.S.
response, FDR's policy towards Europe from the Munich conference to his
"shoot-on-sight" orders, and Roosevelt's stance toward Asia from the
termination of the 1911 trade treaty with Japan and the breaking of
diplomatic relations. A final chapter considers the background of the
Pearl Harbor attack, stressing not only the role of Admiral Yamamoto but
the revisionist arguments concerning event, including the "devil theory"
of the president's culpability.
This third edition includes entirely new material including discussions
of Roosevelt's leadership style, the recognition of the Soviet Union,
policy toward Cuba and Mexico, Pan-American conferences, the 1940
mission of Sumner Welles, the Four Freedoms, and the U.S. Army victory
plan of autumn 1940. Certain other passages have been expanded, such as
those concerning the background of American anti-interventionism, major
peace groups, the London Economic Conference of 1933, the Ethiopian
conflict, the Spanish Civil War, the Nye Committee, the predicament of
Jewish refugees, the Soviet-Finnish war, FDR's Japan diplomacy and his
last-minute assurances to British ambassador Halifax, and the latest
arguments over Pearl Harbor. Also new to this edition is a collection of
striking photographs.
The third edition of this informative and engaging text-one enjoyed by
instructors and students alike for decades-is appropriate for use in the
U.S. history survey as well as in course on twentieth-century history,
American foreign diplomacy, and international relations.
