ABSTRACT
This chapter explains a historiography of the conflict that properly acknowledges the centrality of the colonial, semi-colonial, and neutral world in its prosecution. Traditional accounts of the Second World War are seldom equipped to embrace these aspects of the war because they pursue the war stories of the major belligerents and seek to isolate the wars major tipping points in terms of battles, strategic decisions, or industrial production. The human and material resources were vital for sustaining global war machines and prosecuting military operations on a vast scale. The literature needs robust publications that forge the links required to unite the wars disparate pieces in order to better explain how the war worked. By 1945, America had replaced Britain as the most important external power in the Mediterranean and had supplanted Britain as the guarantor of Australian and New Zealand security.
