American Studies- 20th Century Resources: War in America

2014 marks the centennial of the start of World War I -- DK will mark the occasion with the publication of World War I: The Definitive Visual Guide, a vividly illustrated, in-depth account of the Great War. Written by historian R. G. Grant, and created by DK's award-winning editorial and design team, World War I charts the developments of the war from a global perspective. Using illustrated timelines, detailed maps, and personal accounts, readers will see the oft-studied war in a new light. Key episodes are set clearly in the wider context of the conflict, in-depth profiles look at the key generals and political leaders, and full-color photo galleries showcase the weapons, inventions, and new technologies that altered the course of history.

Discover the misery of life in the trenches -- and how the Great War devastated Europe. Here is an original and exciting guide to the grim challenge of life or death on the Western Front. Devastating first-hand reports and contemporary photographs of the battles that slaughtered millions, together with a clear account of how nation upon nation sent their men to join the carnage, combine to present a dramatic "eyewitness" view of this most terrible war. See the bullet-riddled car of the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, everyday life in the dugout, sappers mining tunnels beneath the enemy, and Mata Hari learning the art of spying. Learn how people avoided gas attacks, when periscopes were used, what soldiers wrote home to their sweethearts and mothers, the best way to use a tank, how troops flattened a hillside, and the meaning of Armistice Day. Discover how it felt to go over the top, what happened to all the bodies, how people dealt with shell shock, why war led to revolution, and much, much more.

The definitive history of World War I's forgotten front: Britain versus Germany in East Africa to secure the belly of a continent. On August 7, 1914, Britain fired its first shots of World War I not in Europe but in the German colony of Togo. The campaign to eliminate the threat at sea posed by German naval bases in Africa would soon be won, but in the land war, especially in East Africa, British troops would meet far fiercer resistance from German colonial forces that had fully mastered the tactics of bush warfare. It was expected to be a "small war," over by Christmas, yet it would continue bloodily for more than four years, even beyond the signing of the Armistice in Europe. Its costs were immense, its butchery staggering (in excess of100,000 British troops and 45,000 native recruits dead). Utmost among the tragic consequences, though, was the waste laid to the land and its indigenous peoples in what one official historian described as "a war of extermination and attrition without parallel in modern times." Imperialism had gone calamitously amok. This eye-opening account of the Great War in East Africa does not flinch at the daily horrors of an ill-fated campaign—not just the combat but also a hostile climate, disease, the terrible loneliness—nor does it fail to recount tales of extraordinary courage and the kind of adventure that inspired fiction like C. S. Forester'sThe African Queen, William Boyd'sAn Ice-Cream War, and Wilbur Smith'sShout at the Devil. In all, it demonstrates dramatically why even the most hardened of Great War soldiers preferred the trenches of France to the trauma of East Africa.

War erupted across Europe. The conflict grew to include the United States, and became known as The War to End Wars. Give readers an up-close examination of this event.

When a Serbian-backed assassin gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand in late June 1914, the world seemed unmoved. Even Ferdinand's own uncle, Franz Josef I, was notably ambivalent about the death of the Hapsburg heir, saying simply, "It is God's will." Certainly, there was nothing to suggest that the episode would lead to conflict--much less a world war of such massive and horrific proportions that it would fundamentally reshape the course of human events. As acclaimed historian Sean McMeekin reveals inJuly 1914, World War I might have been avoided entirely had it not been for a small group of statesmen who, in the month after the assassination, plotted to use Ferdinand's murder as the trigger for a long-awaited showdown in Europe. The primary culprits, moreover, have long escaped blame. While most accounts of the war's outbreak place the bulk of responsibility on German and Austro-Hungarian militarism, McMeekin draws on surprising new evidence from archives across Europe to show thatthe worst offenders were actually to be found in Russia and France, whose belligerence and duplicity ensured that war was inevitable. Whether they plotted for war or rode the whirlwind nearly blind, each of the men involved--from Austrian Foreign Minister Leopold von Berchtold and German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov and French president Raymond Poincaré--sought to capitalize on the fallout from Ferdinand's murder, unwittingly leading Europe toward the greatest cataclysm it had ever seen. A revolutionary account of the genesis of World War I,July 1914 tells the gripping story of Europe's countdown to war from the bloody opening act on June 28th to Britain's final plunge on August 4th, showing how a single month--and a handful of men--changed the course of the twentieth century.

The bestselling author of The First Wave tells the untold story of the four most decorated soldiers of World War I - Medal of Honor recepients all - from North Africa to Hitler's own mountaintop fortress.

A different way to understand the magnitude of World War II. Countless books exist about the Second World War and in those can be found all of the statistics to be had: numbers killed, bombs dropped, battles won and lost, ad infinitum. But to see these numbers as infographics gives the reader a fresh perspective on the war. World War II in Numbers uses color graphics and succinct text to tell the key stories of the battles that engulfed the globe and affected virtually everyone alive during the 1940s. To see the war set out in numbers tells the story with a new certainty: how the Polish Home Army carried out more than 700,000 acts of sabotage the large number of Japanese lost in the Pacific War how Allied tanks stood up to the armor-piercing power of the Panzerfaust the damage the Kamikaze inflicted on Allied ships during the Okinawa Campaign the number of unexploded bombs reported on the island of Malta that in 1944 alone 914,637 tons of bombs were dropped on German cities by how much the Allied forces outnumbered the Germans in Normandy how the ten costliest land battles in WWII compare with those of WWI. The book sets out six chapters with topics discussed in two- and four-page infographics spreads, including certainty: Preparation for War -- Territorial skirmishes, shifting borders, militarism and alliances. Land Campaigns -- Key battles and the military might that fought them. Weapons and Innovations - From the Polish Calvary to the A-Bomb. In the Air -- Aces and blitzes. At Sea -- The war expands to the world's oceans. Costs -- The price of war and its legacy. Compelling, a superb teaching tool, ideal for casual reading and a must-have for military hobbyists, World War II in Numbers is an exciting and powerful perspective on the global conflict.

Recounts the role of the United States in World War II at sea, from encounters in the Atlantic before the country entered the war to the surrender of Japan.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "The most important book ever written about the Catholic Church and its conduct during World War II."--Daniel Silva "Kertzer brings all of his usual detective and narrative skills to [The Pope at War] . . . the most comprehensive account of the Vatican's relations to the Nazi and fascist regimes before and during the war."--The Washington Post Based on newly opened Vatican archives, a groundbreaking, explosive, and riveting book about Pope Pius XII and his actions during World War II, including how he responded to the Holocaust, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Pope and Mussolini LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/JACQUELINE BOGRAD WELD AWARD * ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker When Pope Pius XII died in 1958, his papers were sealed in the Vatican Secret Archives, leaving unanswered questions about what he knew and did during World War II. Those questions have only grown and festered, making Pius XII one of the most controversial popes in Church history, especially now as the Vatican prepares to canonize him. In 2020, Pius XII's archives were finally opened, and David I. Kertzer--widely recognized as one of the world's leading Vatican scholars--has been mining this new material ever since, revealing how the pope came to set aside moral leadership in order to preserve his church's power. Based on thousands of never-before-seen documents not only from the Vatican, but from archives in Italy, Germany, France, Britain, and the United States, The Pope at War paints a new, dramatic portrait of what the pope did and did not do as war enveloped the continent and as the Nazis began their systematic mass murder of Europe's Jews. The book clears away the myths and sheer falsehoods surrounding the pope's actions from 1939 to 1945, showing why the pope repeatedly bent to the wills of Hitler and Mussolini. Just as Kertzer's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Pope and Mussolini became the definitive book on Pope Pius XI and the Fascist regime, The Pope at War is destined to become the most influential account of his successor, Pius XII, and his relations with Mussolini and Hitler. Kertzer shows why no full understanding of the course of World War II is complete without knowledge of the dramatic, behind-the-scenes role played by the pope. "This remarkably researched book is replete with revelations that deserve the adjective 'explosive,'" says Kevin Madigan, Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard University. "The Pope at War is a masterpiece."

This defining period in world history is explored and explained as never before. World War II is captured in hundreds of compelling images, presenting the people, places, and politics involved in the epic conflict. Inside this complete visual guide is chronological coverage of the lead up to war, major military battles around the globe, and the aftermath that still influences and impacts our world today. You'll meet the key players in thought-provoking profiles and discover their experiences firsthand, from national leaders sounding the orders to combatants on the frontline and civilians left behind. Standout moments, including Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, and the D-Day landings, are revealed in rarely seen color photographs and unforgettable eyewitness accounts.

 Explosive photography, international maps, accessible text, and supporting timelines combine to show the most destructive event ever known in unprecedented depth and detail. Although the complexities of World War II can be hard to fathom, this standout reference is organized in a logical order and the supporting captions are concise and clear throughout to aid understanding.
 World War II: The Definitive Visual Guide provides an unparalleled account of this devastating conflict so we never forget and continue to learn from the past.

A riveting, immersive account of the agonizing decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan--a crucial turning point in World War II and geopolitical history--with you-are-there immediacy by the New York Times bestselling author of Ike's Bluff and Sea of Thunder. "As Christopher Nolan's movie Oppenheimer shows, the shockwaves reverberate still. The veteran biographer Evan Thomas now enters the debate."--The Wall Street Journal At 9:20 a.m. on the morning of May 30, General Groves receives a message to report to the office of the secretary of war "at once." Stimson is waiting for him. He wants to know: has Groves selected the targets yet? So begins this suspenseful, impeccably researched history that draws on new access to diaries to tell the story of three men who were intimately involved with America's decision to drop the atomic bomb--and Japan's decision to surrender. They are Henry Stimson, the American Secretary of War, who oversaw J. Robert Oppenheimer under the Manhattan Project; Gen. Carl "Tooey" Spaatz, head of strategic bombing in the Pacific, who supervised the planes that dropped the bombs; and Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, the only one in Emperor Hirohito's Supreme War Council who believed even before the bombs were dropped that Japan should surrender.   Henry Stimson had served in the administrations of five presidents, but as Oppenheimer's work progressed, he found himself tasked with the unimaginable decision of determining whether to deploy the bomb. The new president, Harry S. Truman, thus far a peripheral figure in the momentous decision, accepted Stimson's recommendation to drop the bomb. Army Air Force Commander Gen. Spaatz ordered the planes to take off. Like Stimson, Spaatz agonized over the command even as he recognized it would end the war. After the bombs were dropped, Foreign Minister Togo was finally able to convince the emperor to surrender. To bring these critical events to vivid life, bestselling author Evan Thomas draws on the diaries of Stimson, Togo and Spaatz, contemplating the immense weight of their historic decision. In Road to Surrender, an immersive, surprising, moving account, Thomas lays out the behind-the-scenes thoughts, feelings, motivations, and decision-making of three people who changed history.

"An ingenious look at WWII." --Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) A groundbreaking new history of the role of American servicewomen in WWII, illuminating their forgotten yet essential contributions to the Allies' victory. Valiant Women is the story of the 350,000 American women who served in uniform during World War II. These incredible women served in every service branch, in every combat theater, and in nearly two-thirds of the available military occupations at the time. They were pilots, codebreakers, ordnance experts, gunnery instructors, metalsmiths, chemists, translators, parachute riggers, truck drivers, radarmen, pigeon trainers, and much more. They were directly involved in some of the most important moments of the war, from the D-Day landings to the peace negotiations in Paris. These women--who hailed from every race, creed, and walk of life--died for their country and received the nation's highest honors. Their work, both individually and in total, was at the heart of the Allied strategy that won World War II. Yet, until now, their stories have been relegated to the dusty shelves of military archives or a passing mention in the local paper. Often the women themselves kept their stories private, even from their own families. Now, military analyst Lena Andrews corrects the record with the definitive and comprehensive historical account of American servicewomen during World War II, based on new archival research, firsthand interviews with surviving veterans, and a deep professional understanding of military history and strategy.

The first book to tell the full story of Eleanor Roosevelt's unprecedented and courageous trip to the Pacific Theater during World War II. On August 27, 1943, news broke in the United States that First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was on the other side of the world. A closely guarded secret, she had left San Francisco aboard a military transport plane headed for the South Pacific to support and report the troops on WW2's front lines.  Americans had believed she was secluded at home. As Allied forces battled the Japanese for control of the region, Eleanor was there on the frontlines, spending five weeks traveling, on a mission as First Lady of the United States to experience what our servicemen were experiencing... and report back home. "The most remarkable journey any president's wife has ever made." --Washington Times-Herald, September 28, 1943 "Mrs. Roosevelt's sudden appearance in New Zealand well deserves the attention it is receiving. This is the farthest and most unexpected junket of a First Lady whose love of getting about is legendary." --Detroit Free Press, August 28, 1943 "By a happy chance for Australia, this famous lady's taste for getting about, her habit of seeing for herself what is going on in the world, and, most of all, her deep concern for the welfare of the fighting men of her beloved country, have brought her on the longest journey of them all--across the wide, war-clouded Pacific." --Sydney Morning Herald, September 4, 1943 "No other U.S. mother had seen so much of the panorama of the war, had been closer to the sweat and boredom, the suffering." --Time, October 4, 1943

The author includes many personal accounts of the Second World War, discusses battlefield tactics, and describes deadly weapons such as tanks, fighters, and German missiles.

Set in the midst of international power politics and fears of a general conflagration, the Korean War at its height involved rapid, large-scale troop movements over long distances as each side experienced both outstanding success and disaster. This book tells the full story of the first, and critical, test by the Communist bloc of Western military resolve. Instead of concentrating wholly on the dominant American involvement Michael Hickey also sets in context the contributions -- many of them quite out of proportion to the size of their contingents -- of the other nations that answered the U.N. call and sent troops in response to the North Koreans' surprise attack. Drawing on a number of previously unused sources from several countries, including recently declassified documents, regimental archives, diaries, and interviews, Michael Hickey adds extensively to our knowledge of one of the most significant conflicts of modern times.

"In a grand gesture of reclamation and remembrance, Mr. Halberstam has brought the war back home." --The New York Times David Halberstam's magisterial and thrilling The Best and the Brightest was the defining book about the Vietnam conflict. More than three decades later, Halberstam used his unrivaled research and formidable journalistic skills to shed light on another pivotal moment in our history: the Korean War. Halberstam considered The Coldest Winter his most accomplished work, the culmination of forty-five years of writing about America's postwar foreign policy. Halberstam gives us a masterful narrative of the political decisions and miscalculations on both sides. He charts the disastrous path that led to the massive entry of Chinese forces near the Yalu River and that caught Douglas MacArthur and his soldiers by surprise. He provides astonishingly vivid and nuanced portraits of all the major figures-Eisenhower, Truman, Acheson, Kim, and Mao, and Generals MacArthur, Almond, and Ridgway. At the same time, Halberstam provides us with his trademark highly evocative narrative journalism, chronicling the crucial battles with reportage of the highest order. As ever, Halberstam was concerned with the extraordinary courage and resolve of people asked to bear an extraordinary burden. The Coldest Winter is contemporary history in its most literary and luminescent form, providing crucial perspective on every war America has been involved in since. It is a book that Halberstam first decided to write more than thirty years ago and that took him nearly ten years to complete. It stands as a lasting testament to one of the greatest journalists and historians of our time, and to the fighting men whose heroism it chronicles.

Largely overshadowed by World War II's "greatest generation" and the more vocal veterans of the Vietnam era, Korean War veterans remain relatively invisible in the narratives of both war and its aftermath. Yet, just as the beaches of Normandy and the jungles of Vietnam worked profound changes on conflict participants, the Korean Peninsula chipped away at the beliefs, physical and mental well-being, and fortitude of Americans completing wartime tours of duty there. Upon returning home, Korean War veterans struggled with home front attitudes toward the war, faced employment and family dilemmas, and wrestled with readjustment. Not unlike other wars, Korea proved a formative and defining influence on the men and women stationed in theater, on their loved ones, and in some measure on American culture. In the Shadow of the Greatest Generation not only gives voice to those Americans who served in the "forgotten war" but chronicles the larger personal and collective consequences of waging war the American way.

The untold human story of a massacre of Korean civilians by American soldiers in the early days of the Korean War, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists who uncovered it In the fall of 1999, a team of Associated Press investigative reporters broke the news that U.S. troops had massacred a large group of South Korean civilians early in the Korean War. On the eve of that pivotal war's 50th anniversary, their reports brought to light a story that had been supressed for decades, confirming allegations the U.S. military had sought to dismiss. It made headlines around the world. InThe Bridge at No Gun Ri, the team tells the larger, human story behind the incident through the eyes of the people who survived it: on the American side, the green recruits of the "good time" U.S. occupation army in Japan made up of teenagers who viewed unarmed farmers as enemies and generals who had never led men into battle; on the Korean side, the peasant families forced to flee their ancestral village caught between the invading North Koreans and the U.S. Army. The narrative looks at victims both Korean and American; at the ordinary lives and high-level decisions that led to the fatal encounter; at the terror of the three-day slaughter; at the memories and ghosts that forever haunted the survivors. The story of No Gun Ri also illuminates the larger story of the Korean War-also known as the Forgotten War-and how an arbitrary decision to divide the country in 1945 led to the first armed conflict of the Cold War.

More than 36,000 Americans were killed in the Korean War, yet the three-year conflict went largely ignored by the American public as it took place. This book provides readers with an in-depth look at this Forgotten War to help them understand the reasons behind it, the important battles and military leaders, what resulted from the war, and the legacy it has today.