All Against All: The Long Winter of 1933 and the Origins of the Second World War

In this crisply written, well-documented account, Jankowski (Verdun), a history professor at Brandeis University, examines diplomatic, military, political and economic developments in a crucial period leading up to WWII. Arguing that the winter of 1932-–1933 was when post-WWI Europe and Asia shifted into a pre-WWII footing, Jankowski discusses Japan’s consolidation of its hold on Manchuria, and rearmament in Germany and the Soviet Union. When the Nazis seized power in January 1933, Jankowski writes, the German army was inferior to Poland’s, but Germany’s growing militarism, as well as violent anti-Semitism, was left largely unchecked by the democratic West, which remained in the throes of isolationism and pacifism. He notes that the March 1932 issue of Ladies Home Journal offered a disarmament plan in the name of “9 million [American] mothers,” and the Oxford Union student society voted overwhelmingly against war of any kind in February 1933. Jankowski also delves into negotiations about war debts and currency exchange rates in Geneva and London among members of the faltering League of Nations, as well as political and diplomatic developments in Tokyo, Moscow, and Washington, D.C. Throughout, he shows how rhetorical and military muscle-flexing by rising totalitarian regimes was met by hesitancy on the part of the world’s democracies. This deeply informed and colorful history casts a stark warning about the dangers of unchecked aggression. (Apr.)