ABSTRACT

When a second war in a generation erupted in Europe in 1939 the United States once again adopted a policy of neutrality. Once again, that neutrality did not endure. And once again the United States sided with Britain, France, the USSR, and other allies against Germany. Even more than World War I, World War II was a truly global conflict, one the United States did not formally enter until December 8, 1941, following the Japanese attack on the US colony of Hawai’i. The United States then waged, and won, an incomparably destructive two-front war in Europe and Asia, emerging as indisputably the preeminent power in the world. The war, however, also sowed the seeds of the ensuing cold war with the Soviet Union and the world communist movement.