The Myth of the Good War: America in the Second World War, revised edition

"A revisionist historian offers a refreshing but challenging account of the Second World War, what caused it, why it unfolded as it did, and who emerged the real victor. In the spirit of historians Howard Zinn, Gwynne Dyer, and Noam Chomsky, Jacques Pauwels focuses on the big picture. Like them, he seeks to find the real reasons for the actions of great powers and great leaders. Familiar Second World War figures from Adolf Hitler to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin are portrayed in a new light in this book. The decisions of Hitler and his Nazi government to go to war were not those of madmen. Britain and the US were not allies fighting shoulder to shoulder with no motive except ridding the world of the evils of Nazism. In Pauwels' account, the actions of the United States during the war years were heavily influenced by American corporations -- IBM, GM, Ford, ITT, and Standard Oil of New Jersey (now called Exxon) -- who were having a very profitable war selling oil, armaments, and equipment to both sides, with money gushing everywhere. Rather than analyzing Pearl Harbor as an unprovoked attack, Pauwels notes that US generals boasted of their success in goading Japan into a war the Americans badly wanted. One chilling account describes why President Truman insisted on using nuclear bombs against Japan when there was no military need to do so. Another reveals that Churchill instructed his bombers to flatten Dresden and kill thousands when the war was already won, to demonstrate British-American strength to Stalin. Leaders usually cast in a heroic mould in other books about this war look quite different here. Nations that claimed a higher purpose in going to war are shown to have had far less idealistic motives. The Second World War, as Jacques Pauwels tells it, was a good war only in myth. The reality is far messier -- and far more revealing of the evils that come from conflicts between great powers and great leaders seeking to enrich their countries and dominate the world." -- From publisher's website Contents 5 Foreword To The New English Edition 7 Objectives And Methodology 11 1 Introduction: America And The Myth Of The “great Crusade” 19 2 The American Power Elite And Fascism 29 3 America And The Red Peril 42 4 The War In Europe And America’s Economic Interests 53 5 Fall 1941: The Tide Of War Turns In Front Of Moscow 63 6 The United States At War With Japan And Germany 75 7 Class Warfare On The American Home Front 86 8 A Second Front For Stalin, Or A Third Front In The Air? 95 9 Stalin’s Soviet Union: An Unloved But Useful Partner 107 10 The Liberation Of Italy: A Fateful Precedent 116 11 The Long Summer Of 1944 123 12 The Successes Of The Red Army And The Yalta Agreements 132 13 Dresden: A Signal For Uncle Joe 142 14 From Roosevelt’s “soft Line” To Truman’s “hard Line” Toward Stalin 169 15 An Anti-soviet Crusade? 176 16 The Winding Road To The German Surrender(s) 187 17 America Between Confidence And Concern 193 18 Nuclear Diplomacy And The Onset Of The Cold War 201 19 A Useful New Enemy 213 20 Corporate Collaboration And The So-called “de-nazification” Of Germany (1) 221 21 Corporate Collaboration And The So-called “de-nazification” Of Germany (2) 237 22 The United States, The Soviets, And The Post-war Fate Of Germany 248 23 After 1945: From The Good War To Permanent War 267 Endnotes 281 Acknowledgements 301 Select Bibliography 303 Index 317 The,myth,of,the,good,war Jacques R. Pauwels. A Revised Edition Of The 2002 English Translation With Updated Foreword. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Issued Also In Electronic Format.