WWII E98 The Road to World War II: Depression, Dictators, and Delusion
This episode marks the beginning of our World War II series. This episode breaks down how the Great Depression wrecked economies, empowered dictators, and turned public desperation into political firepower. In Germany, that meant Hitler. In Japan, it meant military rule. In Italy, Mussolini. From Manchuria to the Sudetenland to Poland, we cover the flashpoints that pulled the world into war and why America couldn’t stay on the sidelines for long.
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Mussolini Speaking in Germany - 1927
Mussolini Speaking in Italy - 1938
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References:
Beevor, A. (n.d.). The Second World War. United States: Little, Brown.
Branly, P. (2016). The Spanish Civil War: Prelude to World War II. United Kingdom: Valiant Wings Publishing.
Commager, H. S., Miller, D. L. (2010). The Story of World War II: Revised, Expanded, and Updated from the Original T. United Kingdom: Simon & Schuster.
Davis, K. C. (2020). Strongman: The Rise of Five Dictators and the Fall of Democracy. United States: Henry Holt and Company (BYR).
Dower, J. W. (2000). Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. United States: W. W. Norton.
Fontanellaz, A. (2021). Red Star Versus Rising Sun: Volume 1 - The Conquest of Manchuria 1931-1938. United Kingdom: HELION & Company.
Foreign Trade of the United States in the Fiscal Year 1921/22-1931. (1922). United States: U.S. Government Printing Office.
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Kramka, A. L. (1957). The Sino-Japanese Controversy Over Manchuria, 1931-32, in Retrospect. (n.p.): Northern Illinois University.
Masato Shizume, 2009. "The Japanese Economy during the Interwar Period: Instability in the Financial System and the Impact of the World Depression," Bank of Japan Review Series 09-E-2, Bank of Japan.
Moorhouse, R. (2019). First to Fight: The Polish War 1939. United Kingdom: Random House.
Oka, Y. (1986). Five Political Leaders of Modern Japan: Itō Hirobumi, Ōkuma Shigenobu, Hara Takashi, Inukai Tsuyoshi, and Saionji Kimmochi. Japan: University of Tokyo Press.
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Treaty of Saint-Germain-En-Laye (1919)
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