Many thousands of books have been written about World War 2. Those that deal with the entire war treat it, of course, as a global war. But relatively little attention has been paid, using the same global perspective, about the prelude to war. This book attempts the latter approach. By looking at how disparate trends in Japan and its empire in Korea and China merged with other trends in Europe. To disasterous effect.



The book's scrutiny of German documents and archives shows impressive scholarship. Undoubtedly aided by the authors being German, and being sufficiently distant from those years to objectively analyse the historical record.



The text also delves into the nature of American society in those prewar years. Looking at a strong isolationist feeling that had the tragic effect of neutralising American influence overseas until 1942. Which contributed to the early run of Axis successes.