Main Ideas:

1.      The US increasingly became involved in the war between 1937 to 1941

2.      During WWII, individual liberties were suspended for the national interest

3.      Fighting and winning the war required a combined military & civilian commitment

4.      US became a superpower at the conclusion of WWII

 Material Covered:

1.      Attempts at isolation and neutrality: disillusion and causes of pacifism, Neutrality acts, Spanish Civil War, FDR’s “quarantine” speech

2.      Failure of Peace

a.       Aggression of Italy, Japan, & Germany (1932-1940)

b.      Failure of Appeasement

c.       German invasion of Poland

d.      Gradual US involvement: Neutrality Act, Lend-Lease, destroyer deal, Atlantic Charter

3.      US in WWII

a.       Pearl Harbor

b.      War at home: “arsenal of democracy,” role of women, mobilization, financing, Hollywood goes to war, rationing

c.       Allied Strategy and leadership

                                                                           i.      Assistance to Soviet Union

                                                                         ii.      Europe first, two front war

d.      Ending the war with Japan

                                                                           i.      Atomic bomb: Manhattan Project; Truman; Hiroshima & Nagasaki

                                                                         ii.      US occupation under MacArthur

                                                                        iii.      War crime trials

4.      The war’s impact on minorities

a.       Incarceration of the Japanese-Americans; Executive Order 9066; Korematsu v. US

b.      Segregation in the military

c.       Nazi Holocaust: Nuremberg Trials, Eichman, Barbie

5.      Demobilization

a.       Economic inflation & strikes; GI Bill of Rights