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Book Review
| A World at Total War: Global Conflict and the Politics of Destruction, 1937–1945. Edited by ROGER CHICKERING, STIG FÖRSTER, and BERND GREINER. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 404 pp. $70.00 (cloth).
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The far greater role of Japan and, to a lesser extent, China in World War II than in World War I in causes, course, and consequences helped ensure that the later struggle was more truly global in character. This is signified by the choice of 1937 rather than 1939 as the starting point for the study. Nevertheless, as Gerhard Weinberg makes clear in "Total War: The Global Dimensions of Conflict," the chapter that is most relevant from the perspective of this journal, it was the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939 that really started the global character of World War II. He points out that the participation of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa guaranteed this, and that the wide-ranging nature of German commerce raiding underlined this global character. On the other hand, the beginning of large-scale hostilities in the Pacific was due to the Japanese attack on the United States. Furthermore, in terms of new entrants into hostilities, Hitler's unnecessary decision to declare war on the United States was important. The United States, in response, declared war on Germany on 11 December 1941, as did Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Haiti; Honduras and El Salvador followed the next day, and Panama, Mexico, and Brazil in 1942. Other states delayed—Bolivia and Colombia until 1943 and Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela until 1945. Other late entrants were Liberia in 1944 and Saudi Arabia and Turkey in 1945. |
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