From Isolation to War, 1931-1941

This text covers the major events and historiographical controversies in American diplomacy in the years between the two world wars. Covered in detail are matters such as the background of US isolationism, Pacific diplomacy in the 1920s, the Manchurian Crisis, the Ethiopian War, the Spanish Civil War, the neutrality acts, and the debate over intervention in 1939-41. New topics include the recognition of the Soviet Union, rejection of the World Court, the blocking of Jewish immigration, Munich, the Hitler-Stalin pact, and the polemics of isolationist ideology. Also, an entire chapter that includes discussion of US/Japanese relations in the 1930s and a close consideration of the economic, political, and historical pressures that forced the island empire's decision to act. The book concludes with a delineation of revisionist arguments, including the Devil theory of FDR's culpability, and provides the insight of modern historians in a consideration of Roosevelt's leadership and the true focus of American diplomacy in the 1930s.