Gary R. Hess is an Emeritus Distinguished Research Professor of History at Bowling Green State University. His research and teaching interests focused on U.S. foreign relations from World War II to the present. He is the author of several books, including most recently: Presidential Decisions for War (rev. ed., 2009); and Vietnam: Explaining America’s Lost War (2008). He has been a four-time Fulbright Scholar/Lecturer in India. He is a past president of both the Society for Historians of American Foreign Realtions and the Ohio Academy of History. Both organizations recognized his scholarly and service contributions through their Norman and Laura Graebner Award and Distinguished Historian Award, respectively.

• Preface to the Third Edition ixChapter One. To Pearl Harbor: The United States and World Crisis 1The Arsenal of Democracy: The War in Europe 3“Not Enough Ships": The Effort to Restrain Japan 8Chapter Two. Allied Defeats and the Axis Ascendancy, 1941-1942 20The Nazi Empire at Its Peak 20Japan’s Imperial Conquests 24Defeat and Surrender in the Philippines 25Popular Perceptions and Expectations 34Chapter Three. The War in Europe: The Turn of the Tide 38The Debate over Strategy 38The North African Invasion 41The Eastern Front: The Russian Victory at Stalingrad 45The Battle of the Atlantic 49The Air War: The Bombing of Germany 51The Cross-Channel Invasion: D-Day 53Chapter Four. The Pacific Theater: The War against Japan, 1942-1945 59“Our War”: Characteristics and Popular Perceptions 61Midway: The End of Japan’s Naval Invincibility 65Guadalcanal: The First Offensive 69The Island Campaign, 1943-1944 72Iwo Jima and Okinawa 79Japan 1945: The Refusal to Surrender 84Chapter Five. The Diplomatic Front: Roosevelt and the American Vision of the Postwar World 87The United Nations 90Soviet-American Cooperation 92China’s International Status 98The End of Colonialism 102Chapter Six. The Dilemmas of Victory 109Victory in Europe and the Extent of Nazi Tyranny 110“The Greatest Thing in History”: The Atomic Bomb and Japan’s Surrender 114Hiroshima and Magasaki: The Lingering Questions 117A People Victorious: America at the End of the War 125Conclusion: Why the Allies Won 127Bibliographical Essay 146Index 167Photographs follow page 86Maps:Europe under the Axis 21Japan’s Empire, 1942 26Allied Offensives, 1942-1945 39U.S. Offensive against Japan 60

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