History 485

Devine

Fall 2015

 

Study Questoins: David Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor

 

Chapter 1

 

1.    Throughout 1940-1941, what was the fundamental issue that divided “noninterventionists” and “interventionists? How did this disagreement reveal two different notions of what constituted “national security” and what the United States’ role in the world should be?

 

2.    Why does Reynolds believe the period leading up to US intervention in World War II is more important that previous historians have acknowledged – particularly with regard to the unfolding of US policies in the years after the war?

 

Chapter 2

 

1.    How do “Empire, Ideology, and Economics” help explain the origins of World War II?

 

  1. How were fascism, communism, and liberal democracy different from each other?

 

3.    Why was the Spanish Civil War seen as an indication of the weakness of liberal democracy during the 1930s?

 

4.    What is the difference between liberal capitalism and autarky? Why did autarky seem to be winning the battle of economic systems during the 1930s?

 

5.    How did the United States’ “Empire of Liberty” differ from the empires of Europe and Asia?

 

6.    What factors kept the US from gravitating toward fascism, communism, or economic autarky?

 

7.    Why does Reynolds describe the US in the 1930s as a “country that had lost its nerve”?  How is this “loss of nerve” seen in the foreign policies of this decade?

 

8.    In his approach to foreign policy, in what ways did Franklin D. Roosevelt draw on the ideas of both Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt?  In what ways was he different than Wilson?

 

9.    To what extent is it correct to say that throughout 1937-1938, FDR’s policy regarding the situation in Europe was limited to “pin pricks and righteous protests”? If true, why was this the case?

 

Chapter 3

 

1.    What effect did the Nazi-Soviet pact have on the geopolitical situation in both Europe and Asia?  What effect did it have on public opinion and policy in the US?

 

2.    Why was FDR concerned about air power after 1938?  Why did he fear German air power in particular?

 

3.    Why did FDR fail to rally Congress or the public to a policy of “unneutral rearmament” in late 1938 and early 1939?

 

4.    Why was the US less worried about getting involved in the Sino-Japanese conflict than it was about getting involved in Europe?  How did events in Europe shape US policy in Asia?

 

5.    How did the Neutrality Act of 1939 make it less likely the US would be pulled into a European war but also enable the US to provide more help to the British and French?

 

Chapter 4

1.    Why was Britain initially reluctant to devote all of its resources into buying goods from the US?

 

2.    Why were both the evacuation at Dunkirk and the fall of France significant in determining the course of the European war and the US reaction to events?

 

3.    How did circumstances surrounding the war in Europe change FDR’s attitude toward businessmen and Republicans?  Why did the approach of war also mark the end of the New Deal?

 

4.    What impediments did FDR face as he tried to aid the British?  What was the argument for limiting US aid to Britain?

 

5.    Why was the Curtiss-Wright court decision significant, both in the short- and long-term?

 

6.    How did Hitler’s successes in Europe affect the Japanese strategy in Asia?  Why was the US response to the Japanese so disorganized?

 

7.    Why did both US and Japanese efforts to deter the other end up backfiring?  What role did misperceptions play?

 

8.    What were the major arguments of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies?  To what extent did the America First Committee refute these arguments?

 

9.    What factors – military, cultural, social, political – slowly moved the American public toward a pro-British stance during the summer and fall of 1940?

 

10. How did FDR handle the issue of US intervention in the war during the 1940 presidential campaign?