The Shadows of Total War: Europe, East Asia, and the United States, 1919–1939

Publications of the German Historical Institute

by Roger Chickering (Editor), Stig Forster (Editor)

The essays in this compelling collection examine the period between the two world wars of the twentieth century; one of the most exciting in the history of war. They explore the lingering consequences of World War I; the intellectual efforts to analyze this conflict's military significance; the attempts to plan for another general war; and several episodes in the 1930s that portended the war that erupted in 1939.

Genres: History

376 pages, Hardcover

First published January 15, 1999

Reviews

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Certainly an impressive selection of essays which effectively cover total war in the interwar years. I appreciate how the essays span not only Europe and the States, but also Africa, Russia and Asia, and demonstrates how the interwar years were not as peaceful as one might suppose, but rather a continuation of violence which eventually culminated to the second world war.
However, I was disappointed by the final chapter which covers Japan's invasion of Manchuria, a topic presented primarily from the Japanese perspective, and offered little insight into the brutality of their total war policies. Another point I would have with the book is I feel it could benefit from a concluding chapter from Chickering would effectively binds all the previous essays together, and would add more cohesion to the selection.
However overall this book is of high historical value, and is definitely worth reading to gain an insight into the interwar years that details different perspectives of total war.

[Andrew Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

This monograph is well above average, and most of the experts work well with each other, I really got a lot out of the beginning part of this book.

I wanted to give this 5 stars, but there are some tedious papers in here, I couldn't get through the long examination of Junger.