Book Description

The U.S. Army and World War II is an anthology of selected papers from three international conferences held in 1990, 1992, and 1994 on the Army's role in the war. Taking the best from those meetings, Judith L. Bellafaire has organized the various presentations into four thematic categories--prewar planning, the home front, the European theater, and the Asian-Pacific theaters--reflecting the diversity of both the war and the interest of those seeking to understand its many facets. In these carefully edited papers, one will find the more conventional treatments of doctrine, strategy, and operations side by side with those focusing on military mobilization and procurement, race and gender, psychological warfare, and large-scale advice and assistance programs. Despite significant changes in military technology and the geopolitical landscape of the world since those desperate times, the human problems highlighted by the authors are not much different from many of those facing Army leaders today. Although the past can never provide the specific recipes needed for the future, experience has shown that both the basic ingredients and the manner in which they are prepared and processed have remained remarkably constant. Those grappling with the challenges of stability operations and other contingency missions in support of the Global War on Terrorism will find this collection of readings invaluable.